There is A Season
by Joannawrites
Summary: Lou has returned to Sweetwater with a shattered heart, a heavy burden, and a binding promise to bring a future she dreamed of to life. Too proud to reach out to a family divided by the war, she faces a still Wild West with range wars brewing. She will chance everything to carve a new life but risking happiness after losing everything may require more courage than she has left.
1. A Time to Mourn

A Time to Mourn

 _Sweetwater, Nebraska Territory, August 1865_

The place looked exactly like she felt. Worn-down, lifeless, broken in a hundred ways and places.

In her darkest imaginings, she'd never thought her homecoming would feel this way. For years, the thought of this place was the only thing that made hope flare in her heart. It was their dream, this place where their past was rooted, where they had found happiness and each other. It had never occurred to her, even while the world was crumbling and falling away beneath her feet, that this place too would have been touched by the tempest that had soaked their world in blood for four years.

Her bitterness at her own naivety lay on her tongue like the dust on the sun-scorched yard. High above her in the cloudless sky, the windmill turned listlessly on some breeze that could not be felt below, metal screeching on metal.

"What the hell am I supposed to do now?" she asked, voice startling her horse, and looked to her right.

He, of course, was not there to answer her.

She knew that to the center of her soul, but still it always jarred her to realize it, her heart breaking anew a thousand times a day whenever she parted her lips to tell him whatever thought crossed her mind. She talked to him still, when she talked at all, wondered if that made her crazy, then decided it didn't matter.

Almost nothing mattered to her now.

Here was their hard-won future and she found she didn't want it anymore. _He_ had been her dream first and foremost, and all this was secondary and no consolation to her at all. But she had made a promise in the moments when she would have promised him anything to make his passing easier. Now she resented the hell out of it, and maybe him too a little bit for making her give her word.

Nevertheless, she was bound to it, and to this place, and to this life as surely as she had been bound to him.

She urged her horse forward, his horse following quietly on the lead at her side on the last full measure of their journey to begin life without him.


	2. A Time to Weep

A Time to Weep

His heart was caught somewhere in his throat when the windmill rose into view. How many times, he wondered, had he passed under it coming or going with no real idea how quickly those days were ticking by? How many of those days populated with the family that had loved and understood him had he taken for granted? He could close his eyes and hear their laughter, funning him about something or the other...usually his luck with women.

They had stood together, an indivisible force against staggering odds again and again...until they hadn't. Their ties had been severed by the force that had hung over their heads all the time they had called themselves family. Hell, he knew that blood families had been ripped apart by the war: brothers against brothers, fathers against sons, husbands against wives. Even having seen it first hand so many times, he still found himself surprised that things had ended as they had with his Express family.

He had no idea what the hell he was doing coming back here now, where it had all begun.

Tompkins had decided Rock Creek was too close to the war for him and had moved his store back West. Two weeks ago, Teaspoon had received a telegram from him asking who had bought the old station. Word was a woman had been seen riding the property that had been otherwise abandoned since they had gone to Rock Creek.

 _You think it's them?_ He had asked Teaspoon, clutching the telegram in his hands.

 _Might be...heard a rumor that Emma had sold it. I don't see her letting it go for just anyone. You gonna check and see?_

 _Feel like I got to,_ he had said and left within the hour.

He had a long ride to decide what he would do or say if it was them, what words he _could_ say that could begin to heal the rift that had ripped them all wide open years ago.

The truth was, a thousand miles later he still had no idea what he'd say, or if he'd be given a chance to talk at all. They had not parted as friends.

It might not even be them. Whatever trepidation he felt at the thought of seeing them again, it was nothing compared to the fear that it wasn't them, that he would never see them again.

See _her_ again, he corrected himself and felt guilt coil in his stomach.

"You're a coward," he told himself when he realized he had stopped the horse altogether, and he urged his palomino forward.

His heart crashed against the front of his ribcage when he topped the small rise and the old station spread out before him. He took in the extent of disrepair with surprise, but what felt like a sucker punch was seeing the flashy paint mare in the corral. He'd know that horse anywhere, and even after all the loss the war had wrought, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of souls lost, he found himself moved near to tears that she had survived it.

"You ain't cryin' about a horse for God's sake," he growled, just one more rebuke in a long stream of self-criticism that had been his company on the long ride.

He rode in slowly, watching both the house and bunkhouse for signs of movement. He had no idea whether he would be welcomed with open arms or by the barrel of a gun, thought most likely something in between.

Katy and Lightning both pushed their heads over the fence and nickered softly as he rode by the corral. His horse responded and Jimmy took a moment to be touched that their horses had remembered each other after all the years. It made him hopeful, made him think maybe the distance between them was not insurmountable.

Then again, the last few years had made him think animals had a hell of a lot more sense than men. For damn sure they had a better nature.

The sun was merciless, the air still and heavy though it should be getting on to Autumn. He dismounted and wiped the sweat from his brow as he looped his reins over the hitching post.

The main house looked to be in awful condition. He wouldn't have trusted the rickety front steps to handle his weight. He didn't see any sign of life there, so he turned toward the bunkhouse. The porch was swept clean and there were curtains pulled across the windows.

He caught himself before he went right in without knocking, as he had done hundreds of times before. Reminded himself that not only was this not his home, but he might not even be welcome here any longer.

He hesitated, straightened his hat, brushed a layer of dust off his clothes. Then, with a deep breath, he knocked.

There was no answer. Wrinkling his brow, he walked out to the station yard and listened. He heard muffled sounds coming from the barn and gathered his courage. He wasn't used to feeling anxious, didn't care for the useless sensation.

It was hot in the barn, but still a good twenty degrees cooler than the blazing sun. After the bright light, he could see nothing but giant dark blotches.

He could hear banging at the far end of the stable, followed by the creative cursing that he knew could only come from Lou when she was riled.

Smiling despite his nervousness, he made his way toward her, vision still not quite adjusted to the dimness.

She was in the large open area where they had stored their wagon and buckboards back during the express. Part of the roof had caved in, and she was framed in a shaft of sunlight coming from the gaping hole above. She was on one end of a large beam that probably weighed ten times what she did, pulling with all her might.

She was filthy, face streaked with dirt and dust, sweat making tracks through it as she fought the beam and cursed. Her hair was longer than he had ever seen it, it hung midway down her back in a braid with hay sticking out at several angles. She was still tiny, but he wouldn't have called her figure boyish anymore, especially not from his view of her backside. He had known a girl. She was now a woman.

His throat was too tight to speak for a long moment, vocal cords paralyzed by emotion. His relief to see her alive and well, if disheveled, was overwhelming.

"Need a hand, Lou?" he finally managed to say around the knot in his throat as if he crossed her path everyday.

She yelped and spun around, hand reaching for the gun she wasn't carrying.

Her eyes, wide and dark as ever, fixed on his face. For a minute she looked at him without any comprehension, terror ruling her expression.

"Lou, it's me," he said quietly.

Her face, flushed from the heat, went stark white. She swayed for a moment, and he took a step forward, alarmed, but not sure if she wanted his help or not.

He wasn't fast enough to catch her before she folded silently to the dirt.

He dropped on his knees at her side, turning her onto her back. She was already coming to, but he still brushed hair back from her hot forehead, used his hat to fan her face.

Her eyes opened and she blinked in confusion. She struggled to sit up, ignoring the hand he offered. She was still white as a bone bleached in the sun.

"You need water," he said, discouraged by her inscrutable stare. Once, he had known her every expression, had been able to read her thoughts before she voiced them. Now, she rivaled the best card players he had ever gone up against. He stood and turned until he saw her canteen hooked on a stall door. He picked it up, found it empty.

"Damn it Lou, you know better than this! You can't work in this heat without water. It's dangerous," he scolded. "Let me get mine."

She still didn't say a word when he turned to run back down the aisle. His heart twisted, his mind raced. He had known Kid would greet him cautiously, if not with hostility, but he had thought Lou might have been glad to see him.

Then again, he'd had over two weeks to prepare himself to see them and it had still felt like a fist in the gut to be face to face with her. Lou had no idea he was coming. It must have been a hell of a shock.

He hurried back to the barn with his water. She was standing, had come down the aisle. She stopped cold when he entered and watched him warily, arms hugged across herself as if for warmth.

He uncapped the canteen and stretched it towards her. She met his eyes briefly, brushed an escaped strand of hair behind her ear, then took it. He saw her hands were shaking when she raised it to her lips, drank deeply.

He studied her while she drank. She was dressed as she had been for most of the time he had known her, in trousers and a button up shirt open at the throat; it had come untucked with her exertion.

He had instantly noticed her figure had filled out through hip and breast when he first saw her, but despite that, she was thin. Too thin. Her cheekbones and collarbone both pressed hard against her skin, as if they might break through.

Her eyes were the same golden brown as ever, but they seemed duller and there were dark smudges of exhaustion under them. Her lips were bloodless and cracked, and set in a thin line as if they weren't used to turning upwards in the ready smile he had missed.

He felt a flash of anger towards Kid. Was the damned fool so proud that he'd put her to work like a day laborer rather than ask his family for help?

"What are you doing here, Jimmy?" she asked, arm falling listlessly to her side as if the weight of the canteen was too great.

"We heard someone bought the place. I...I hoped it was y'all. We all did."

She blinked in surprise and lowered her gaze, but not before he saw the shadow of something painful slide through her eyes like an eel under the surface of dark water. His gut, already uneasy, twisted tighter and his heart kicked against his ribs again.

"Why, Jimmy? Why would you care?"

"Lou, I know that I said alota things before...before you two left Rock Creek...things I regret...but there ain't been a day gone by you both hadn't crossed my mind. I...I wanted to set things right as I could…hoped we might find our way to being friends again."

"Well you caint do that, Jimmy," she growled.

"Lou, if y'all will just let me sit down and talk to you for just awhile, you both mean too much to me not to try to make amends…and I thought y'all would feel-"

"Jimmy. There is no 'y'all.'" Her voice was barely a whisper but the words hit him like a slap, and he felt his stomach clench again.

"What do you mean, Lou?" he asked, and his voice was unsteady because he knew. Knew that Kid would have never let Lou work to collapse like she clearly had been, despite his unkind thoughts.

Lou's face was twisted in grief, and she hesitated.

"Lou? Where is Kid?" Jimmy demanded, more forcefully than he intended.

" _He's dead_!" she half-shouted, half-sobbed, tears rolling down her cheeks.

It was like a blow. He sagged against the wall of the stable, didn't trust his knees to hold him. The world spun, came apart at the seams.

Lou dashed her tears furiously with the back of her hand, threw his canteen down and stormed around him, walking quickly down the aisle, weaving a little on unsteady legs.

He couldn't breathe, couldn't speak around the grief that closed on his heart like a fist. He doubled over, trying not to be sick on the hard-packed dirt of the stable aisle.

He'd worried Kid would be killed plenty of times during the war. Yet, in a thousand miles it had never occurred to him that Lou would have been here alone. He hadn't considered that one of them could be in the world without the other.

"Ah, God," he hissed through clenched teeth. He wanted to strike something, transfer the pain out of himself and into something or someone else, anything or anyone else. The damned war was supposed to be over. When would the dying stop?

And Lou. Thin and pale with grief bourne alone. It added a new sharp edge to his pain, cutting through the agony of realizing he could never make things right with Kid.

He whispered her name in a hoarse voice, then called out to her. She flinched when he did, letting him know she had heard him, but she continued her quick stride toward the bunkhouse.

He ran after her, catching her halfway across the yard. She didn't stop, so he hooked a hand around her elbow and pulled back gently, turning her toward him.

" _Please_ ," was all he could say when her furious face looked into his, but he didn't even know what he was asking of her. An explanation, forgiveness, for it not to be true? He didn't know, but he wanted her response with his whole heart.

She had tears racing down her face, had her teeth set against threatening sobs. She was losing the battle with her control.

"Lou," he whispered and tears started falling from his own eyes as he gathered her to his chest, holding her tight as the first sob wracked her whole frame. She felt brittle, too many sharp edges.

For a half-second she leaned into him, and he thought that maybe he could give her comfort, and if he could, maybe he could bear his own pain.

However, before that thought was through his mind she let loose a raw-throated scream and stiffened like a poker, pushing away from him. When he tried to hold on to her, she shrieked and beat her fists against his chest in blind fury, striking him hard again and again.

He let her go, bewildered.

She backed up, fists still clenched and screamed at him across the narrow divide, " _God damn you!_ You broke my heart just the same as him!"

And she turned and fled to the bunkhouse, and he stood rooted there while she bolted the door against him.


	3. A Time To Stay

_A Time to Stay_

She slammed the door hard enough to rattle all the windows and shrieked in desperation when the bolt jammed. With a surge of strength she slammed it home, keeping Jimmy away from her, though from the stricken look on his face, she doubted he would follow.

He made her feel too much. She struck the door with the palms of her hands with all her fury, gasping for air. It did nothing to stop the flood of emotion. She slid down the back of the door as the sobs tore through her, wracking her whole body. She hadn't thought she had any more tears left in her, had not expected this absolute tidal wave of grief to wash through her.

She had _wanted_ to hurt him. She had wanted him to feel the agony of the truth, to turn his hope to make things right to ash in his mouth.

And she had succeeded. She had leveled him, destroyed him with the truth she had used like a weapon. She'd all but heard his heart crack wide open.

What she hadn't expected was that his devastation would reflect right back at her, his grief like a mirror for hers, making it as raw and fresh as the day Kid had died.

Now, the grief that always simmered beneath the surface boiled into the realization of how badly she had hurt Jimmy and she doubled over. How could she have done that to him, motivated by nothing but bitterness and her own misery? He hadn't deserved that from her. She eased down on the floor there by the door, wrapped her arms around herself and went to a thousand pieces.

In time, she heard hoofbeats and peeled herself from the floor, watching as Jimmy, atop his palomino, tore away from the station. The pain in her chest to see him leaving was physical, and she pressed her hand there as if she could ease the ache so easily.

She had desperately wanted him to go, but the sting of it was agonizing. Her heart was divided as ever.

Tears kept falling of their own accord as she walked to the bunk that had been Kid's. She lay upon it, as she had since returning, fingers tracing the edge of it, wondering if his touch had ever followed the same path. It was almost like holding his hand.

The years had stolen any hint or smell of him from the bed, but she could close her eyes and see him here, only a step away from her upper bunk. It had been both comforting and agonizing to be so close to him in the early days of their odd courtship and in the heated months that followed.

She hugged a pillow to herself hard for a moment, then forced herself to take deep breaths, knowing she needed to calm herself.

Her body curved around the still small rise in her belly, hands testing it gently, assuring herself she was still growing with the life she carried, the life she prized high above her own.

It was a blessing, the last bit of Kid left in the world. It was also a curse that robbed her choice of whether to go find him in whatever place came next. She wasn't sure she would have, now or ever, but there had been moments in those first days when the pain made even breathing unbearable and she had considered it. At times, it seemed unfair to her, as if he had taken the easy way out. She knew it was ridiculous to feel that way, knew that he certainly would have chosen to remain by her side, to experience peace with her. But she still felt he had broken any number of implicit and explicit promises by leaving her so soon.

"God damn you," she whispered brokenly, without heat, exhausted after her storm of weeping. She did not know if she cursed herself for her cruelty, Jimmy for coming here and stirring her heart, Kid for leaving her, or if she damned all of them together.

She knew only that the baby that quickened in her belly was the thing anchoring her to this ruthless world.

* * *

He rode like the hounds of hell were nipping at Sundance's heels. He thought if he rode fast enough, far enough, he could distance himself from the truth. He would have killed a hundred fine horses beneath him if he could outrun it, but it rode right there on his shoulders and it weighed more than the world.

He pulled his horse to a sudden halt, dismounted while the horse was still skidding. He was at the lake he had always come to when troubled, years ago.

Without thinking, he drew his weapon and emptied the chamber into a tree, yelling and cursing as he did so. Unsatisfied, he drew the other and emptied that too.

Then, undone, he backed into another tree and slid down it, bowing his head and crying like he had not since he was a boy.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, feeling sick and lost, but the light had shifted when he climbed to his feet. He felt calmer, more collected, though he didn't pretend the full impact of the loss had settled on him yet. He felt marginally better, having made up his mind. He climbed back on his horse.

Sweetwater had not changed much in all the years since Emma had first brought them into town, demanding their town manners, whatever that meant. The corner of Jimmy's mouth lifted in a mirthless almost-smile, thinking that he and the others had likely seemed like lost causes to her in that respect.

There was one notable addition to town. The Western Union telegraph office was across the street from Tompkins' store. Jimmy looked up at the wires that had nailed the coffin shut on the express, shook his head.

He was a simple man. Some would say an uneducated one, and despite his attempts to better himself, he supposed they were right. How tapping a lever here got his words to another place was beyond his understanding; he regarded it with as much suspicion as witchcraft. Still, it was a damn sight more convenient than riding a thousand miles and he had use of it now.

The man behind the desk looked up when he paused in the doorway, eyes widening and darting to his guns. The clerk swallowed audibly, which irked him.

"S-Sir?" the clerk stuttered.

"I ain't gonna shoot ya," he muttered, wondering what his face looked like to inspire the instant fear from the clerk. "I need to send a message to Rock Creek. Can you do that?"

"Anywhere we got an office," he said proudly, and Jimmy wondered how the hell the wires knew to carry the message to Rock Creek rather than New York or San Francisco.

"Just write down your message here on this form and I can send it on its way."

Jimmy took the pen and stared at the form. It occurred to him belatedly that he would have to tell them about Kid's death in a few short words, that he would have to devastate them, do to them what had been done to him.

He was worried for Teaspoon especially. God, he couldn't imagine how Teaspoon would react to losing one more of them. Three gone. Four remained, maybe five if Jesse had survived the war he'd been so anxious to join. It seemed like Lou might be as lost to them as Jesse was.

He had no idea how in the hell he would word the message, soften the blow.

"I-I...can write for you...if you don't know h-how," the clerk said anxiously, hovering at his elbow like a horsefly.

Jimmy gave him a long look that had the clerk sitting back down. He realized there was no way to break it to them softly, there was nothing easy about the news, whatever words he used.

Annoyed, and devastated, Jimmy scratched out:

 _Kid is dead. Lou alone. Staying on. J._

He looked at the words a long moment, felt his gut hollowing with dread and grief. Recorded there in black and white, it seemed starkly real, final.

"This message is to go to Rachel Dunn at the schoolhouse in Rock Creek...you got that?" He knew Rachel was strong enough to shoulder the news, knew she would understand he wanted her to tell Teaspoon the way she thought best. It still ached to think of the woman who was half-mother, half-friend to them reading his blunt words. _Forgive me, Rachel,_ he thought as he handed the clerk the message.

"That'll be a dollar," the clerk said after reading the message. He looked at Jimmy with hesitation, as if he was unsure whether to comment on his loss or not, Jimmy's face apparently deciding him on not.

Jimmy shook his head in amazement as he paid the dollar. It was no wonder they had been put out of business.

"If there is a reply, where should I send it?"

"Emma Shannon's old place," he muttered. "You know it?"

"Used to be a pony express station, if you can believe that," the clerk informed him and chuckled. "I guess we put them out of their jobs over there. Thought it was abandoned?"

"It ain't," Jimmy said flatly, gave the man another long look and then exited the office.

As he stepped on the street, he heard the tapping of the message inside and looked up again at the wires, guessing his grim words rode along on them, along with Kid's ghost.

* * *

She tired easily these days, and she must have fallen asleep there on the bunk though it was early afternoon and there were plenty of chores to see to.

She startled awake and saw the sun slanting down the walls. For a minute she wasn't sure what day it was, or whether it was morning or night. She sat up, felt like her eyes had been rubbed with sand. Her head ached fiercely too. She paused on the edge of the bunk a moment, clutching her skull.

Slowly, she stood, dared looking in the mirror on the wall, wondering what she must have looked like to Jimmy.

The pale woman in the mirror had her eyes and the general shape of her face, but otherwise she might not have recognized herself. The reflected woman looked gaunt, disheveled, half-mad. She couldn't remember the last time she had looked at herself, was startled by what she had become.

She reached for the silver-backed hairbrush on the small chest below the mirror. Her fingers traced the beautiful scroll work on the back of the brush. Like most things, it reminded her of Kid. It had been a gift from him. He had noticed her admiring it in a store in Richmond, had presented it to her the next day over her protests that she didn't need such a frivolous thing and they needed to save money for the farmhouse they planned on purchasing.

 _You ask so little, Lou...let me give you this small thing just because it made you smile. That's reason enough sometimes, you know._

He had always liked to watch her brush her hair out every night as he was lying across their bed, waiting for her to join him. She had been able to see him in the reflection of her small vanity mirror. He had always watched intently, charmingly spellbound by the simple task. It had made her feel beautiful the way he was content just to look at her. She had loved even more when he sometimes got up from their bed and came to stand behind her, taking the brush from her unresisting grasp and finishing the job himself impatiently before he pulled her to her feet and then toward the bed.

She closed her eyes and swayed there in the bunkhouse, desire for her husband twisting low in her belly, followed by the sorrow that his hands would never wind through her hair, nor cradle the base of her skull as he urged her head to fall back so he could bend and take her mouth.

She realized she was hugging the brush to her chest, found it a poor substitute for him. Meeting her eyes again in the mirror, she unbraided and brushed out her hair, and thought if she could just look quickly enough out of the corner of her eye maybe she would see him reflected there.

But that was a fantasy she tortured herself with too often; she was alone. She was used to being alone, had spent more days alone than not during her marriage. But this was different. He wasn't ever going to come back to her. It was more than being alone, more than loneliness. It was desolation.

She thought she might be imagining the approaching hoofbeats when she first heard them, but they persisted. Heart squeezed into her throat, she lay the brush in its place. She tucked her gun into the waistband of her pants and pulled the curtain back with a trembling hand.

A man was riding toward the main house. He was astride a fine black stallion, wore impeccable clothes. Everything about him screamed prosperity and purpose. She saw him glance around, unimpressed, though his eye lingered on Katy in the corral. She had been here over a month and had not seen a soul. Two visitors in one day was two too many.

She walked out of the bunkhouse as the man dismounted and started toward the main house with purpose.

"Wouldn't climb those stairs," she warned across the distance and felt some satisfaction when he nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun around, looking guilty, and him acting like he was doing something wrong put her immediately on her guard.

"Can I help you?" she asked as the man switched directions and came toward her. She jumped lightly down from the porch and walked to meet him in the yard. She did not want to feel obliged to ask him into her home.

She would never put herself in that position again.

"Yes...um, Miss? I was looking for the new owner," the man told her.

"You found her," Lou said and didn't miss the surprise in the man's eyes nor the way his gaze swept over her dirty clothes as if he found the fact she owned anything unlikely.

"I meant your...father, perhaps? The man of the house."

Lou felt her hackles rise, felt wary of the man.

"Who are you?" she asked, not willing to admit to him yet that there was no man on the property.

She could tell he didn't like the direct question from her, but he hid it quickly. "My name is Silas Warner. I own all the neighboring land to... _your_...property." Again the skeptical look over her that suggested she had probably stolen even the clothes she wore.

"And you are?" the man asked.

"Lou...Louise McCloud," she hated she tripped over her own name.

"Miss McCloud, would you be so kind as to fetch…"

"It's Mrs.," Lou interrupted him, closing her hand tightly so she could feel her wedding ring. She could tell he also didn't like being interrupted. There was an air of annoyance growing around him, he was ready to be done with her.

"My apologies, Mrs. McCloud. Would you be so kind as to fetch your husband as I have a business proposition for him?"

She was dismissed, as far as he was concerned, she thought. It made her angry, reminded her of why she had disguised herself as a man for those years.

"My husband is dead, Mr. Warner. But even if he wasn't, if you have business, you'd have to run it by me too."

He was at a loss for words for a moment. Lou got the feeling he wasn't often taken by surprise and that he did not care for it any more than he cared for her.

"You're _alone_ here, Mrs. McCloud?" his voice was incredulous.

"Well, I have the horses for company," she said and saw his patience was thin.

"I...see. Well, I'll get right to the point. I have been trying to buy this land from Emma Shannon for years. She wouldn't sell it to me."

"That's cause she was selling it to us...or me rather," Lou said as if it were obvious.

"Yes well, I have come to make you a very generous off-"

"It ain't for sale," she interrupted him.

"But you haven't even heard the offer," Silas argued.

"Ain't accepting offers on something that ain't for sale."

" _Everything's_ for sale, Mrs. McCloud. I am prepared to offer you three times what this property is worth."

"That's a very generous offer," she acknowledged.

"So you'll consider-"

"No, I won't. The property is not for sale, Mr. Warner. Not for any price."

"You're being as ridiculous as the fool woman who owned this place before you!"

"Careful, Mr. Warner, that fool woman is like family to me."

"What can you possibly be doing here all by yourself? How in the world are you going to put this patch of dust to any use?"

"That's not any of your business 'cause it's _my_ patch of dust," Lou said calmly.

He was agitated, and Lou concentrated on the feel of gunmetal against her back. Silas Warner was not a man used to hearing no. She got the feeling he would tolerate it even more poorly coming from a woman.

"Listen to me," he began and he took a step toward her and reached for her as if he might take hold of her arm. Lou raised her chin, fire in her blood. She was ready for a fight, she had plenty of anger stored up for just such an opportunity.

He paused with his hand in midair, and they both turned toward the sound of a horse approaching fast.

Lou's heart quickened. It was Jimmy, though why he had come back she couldn't guess.

He pulled the horse to a stop and sat there wordlessly behind her. She glanced at him, but his attention was intent on the man she suspected he had seen move toward her. She guessed both she and Jimmy had felt that step was one too far.

Silas Warner dropped his hand and backed up one step.

"If you're a smart woman, you'll consider my offer, Mrs. McCloud."

"You have my answer, Mr. Warner and it's my final word on the matter. But I'm pleased to be acquainted with my neighbor," Lou said, and offered her hand.

He ignored it. "I hope you'll come to your senses. The offer stands when you've had enough. It's a dangerous place out here, Mrs. McCloud. All sorts of terrible things could happen. Especially to a woman alone."

"She ain't alone," Jimmy said behind her. His voice was neutral, but she thought Warner probably heard the returned threat in it, just as she did.

She glared at Jimmy over her shoulder, wondering what his angle was, but she did not contradict him in front of Warner. _She ain't alone._ His words had hit her hard, stirred up emotion that she swallowed down with difficulty.

Warner divided a long look between her and Jimmy.

"Seems like you've moved on from your dead husband," he said nastily, and Lou flinched as he turned on his heel back toward his horse.

Neither she nor Jimmy moved as he mounted up and rode back in the direction from which he had come, back ramrod straight with his displeasure.

Lou finally turned and looked at Jimmy, saw the concern and questions about what he had interrupted in his eyes, and knew behind those immediate questions there would be a hundred more that she wasn't ready to answer.

"Go away," she told him flatly. She walked back into the bunkhouse without another word, and bolted the door again.

A/N: Thanks so much for your excitement and encouragement about this new story. I am obsessed with getting it down, although it is breaking my heart at the same time! Killing Kid is killing me!


	4. A Time to Escape

_A Time to Escape_

It was twilight when she decided she could put off feeding the horses no longer. She stepped out onto the porch, and filled her lungs with mercifully cool air. The western sky still glowed a brilliant orange, outlining the distant mountains stitched across the horizon.

It was her favorite time of day, had always been as long as she could remember. She had tolerated Virginia, had even come to appreciate the lush greenness and rolling hills of the South, and the distinct seasons. Still, there had always been too many trees blocking her view of the sky and stars. She had felt confined there at times, especially in the summer evenings when the air stayed close and heavy, pressing down on her.

It had been Kid's place, but it could never have been hers. She needed open skies with wide horizons.

She walked across the yard to the corral, keeping a watchful eye out for Jimmy. She felt like a towel that had been put through the wash and wrung out hard. She didn't think she had another confrontation, or even conversation, in her. She had gotten so used to being by herself, both during the war and after coming here, that she found people exhausting.

Jimmy was nowhere in sight, but neither were the horses in the corral that should have been fussing at her for their food.

Wrinkling her brow, and more than a little worried, she hurried to the barn and sighed in relief. Lightning and Katy were both in their old stalls, as was Sundance. It gave her a jolt to see them together like that, she had always looked for the paint and palomino when she rode in, always wanted to know their riders were home safe, above the others, before she breathed easy.

She looked in Lightning's stall, saw he had fresh water and clean bedding.

She moved to Katy's stall to check her as well, even though she knew Jimmy would have cared for them as carefully as she would have.

Her heart leapt into her throat when she saw Jimmy there in the stall with Kid's horse. He was stroking Katy's neck, tears rolling silently down his face. She could remember seeing him really cry only one other time and that had been when a peculiar little man named Ambrose had been killed saving his life.

Katy had lowered her head to rest against Jimmy's chest and stomach, giving as well as receiving comfort. The poor mare had soaked up quite of few of Lou's tears as well.

She wasn't sure if she made some sound of distress or if he just sensed her there, but he startled and turned toward her, and she saw the depth of pain in his eyes, knew that however they had ended things that his grief was real and consuming. She was still not sure she could ever move past the way they had parted, but his pain was tangible and it softened her heart towards him just a little.

That softening brought her no peace; she only felt as if she betrayed Kid with it.

He didn't say anything, watching her war with herself.

She could not think of the first thing to say to him. Burned bridges and four years stretched between them, those years each filled with a lifetime of pain. She didn't know how to bridge the gap, or if she even wanted to try.

The pain foremost in her heart, and now his, was still unspeakable for her. She knew he would want to know how Kid had died...he would _need_ to know, but her mind could not dip toward that last day. Anything else they might say to one another seemed trivial, frivolous even.

So they were at an impasse.

She could tell from his expression that he was struggling with what to say as well, and that hurt too because they had once talked about everything and nothing with such ease. With Jimmy, more than anyone else, including Kid, she had never felt the need to censor her thoughts, had known there was nothing she could say to him that he wouldn't understand.

She met his eyes, heartbreak finding heartbreak for a long moment. It was far too intimate, and she looked away first.

She wanted to ask about the rest of her family, to know if they were well, hell, even alive, after the war. She wanted to know why he had looked so sad, even before she had told him about Kid. She wanted to know if he still had ties to that awful Burke woman, even though it was none of her business.

All those things were on the tip of her tongue, but she was a proud woman, and asking seemed somehow like losing whatever ridiculous, but high-stakes game she imagined they were engaged in.

"What is it, Lou?" he asked quietly, seeing her questions and the agony of asking them. "I'll tell you anything you want to know."

"Why are you still here?" she asked instead of the things she really wanted to know, her voice thin.

He looked at her a long minute, the stall door a safe barrier between them.

He sighed heavily, grappling with the words for a bit. "Because _he_ wouldn't want me to leave you here alone. And neither do I," Jimmy finally said simply.

She felt the beginnings of a protest rising to her lips, wanted to rage at him that he had no right putting words in her husband's mouth, that he had _no_ idea what Kid would or wouldn't want, and that it hardly mattered because Kid wasn't here and she was and she certainly didn't want him here to pull things from her better left buried.

But he spoke the truth. Kid had told her to go to them, to ask them for help. He had mentioned Jimmy particularly. There were some promises she just had not been able to keep when it came down to it.

"And what if I don't want you here?"

She saw him flinch at the words before he looked down to hide the pain she inflicted on him. It brought her no satisfaction to hurt him, but she needed him gone.

"Then...I-I'm sorry and I'll stay out of your way, Lou. You ain't gotta even speak to me. But I'm stayin'."

She started to argue, realized she didn't have the stamina to start a fight tonight. She could figure out a way to drive him off tomorrow.

* * *

He considered it progress that she walked away this time rather than running, and she didn't yell at him or tell him outright to leave.

This was a new Lou, and he wasn't sure if the old Lou was gone for good or just buried under her grief. This Lou was more serious and more ruthless than girl he had known, who had been tough enough in her own right. Then again, after the inferno the country had gone through, he wasn't sure that they all hadn't been forged into harder versions of themselves.

But he stood by what he had told her. He knew he would not have been Kid's first choice, but he also knew Kid would recognize he was better than no one.

"At least I hope that's what you would want, because God knows she doesn't," he said aloud as if Kid was standing right behind him, watching Lou's retreat.

In addition to the sheer enormity of work repairing the ruin of the station, he wasn't exactly sure what he had broken up earlier this afternoon when he had seen the well-dressed man towering over Lou. He knew better than to push her for information. Whatever it was, it had been clear to him, even at a distance, that they were butting heads.

When the stranger moved toward her, he had read it as a threat, decided to intervene. He knew the old Lou could handle herself, but he was a little worried what this new Lou would or would not do. She had seemed so small, standing toe to toe with that man. Her hair had been loose and waving around her pale face. She had looked beautiful, fierce, and forlorn when he had ridden to stand with her. That had surprised her, and the fact that she hadn't expected him to back her told him how many miles apart they were in their thoughts.

He wasn't sure if the stranger was going to be a problem, but he intended to find out as soon as possible.

* * *

The next morning she was up early, but he was up even earlier. Katy and Lightning had been turned out already when she stepped onto the bunkhouse porch. As she stood with her brow lowered and contemplated how she felt about that, Sundance emerged from the barn, harnessed to the beam she had tried, unsuccessfully, to move yesterday.

Jimmy called encouragement to the palomino from behind, where he held the long reins as the horse pulled the heavy load out past the corral and towards a dusty patch where Jimmy was creating a burn pile of debris.

He was shirtless, already covered with a sheen of sweat that let her know he had been at it awhile. Her eyes paused on the play of his muscles under his skin before she felt her cheeks heat with shame and looked away.

She wondered where he had passed the night, guessed most likely in the tack room Teaspoon had once stayed in. As far as she knew there was no mattress on the bunk there any longer. She started to feel badly about that, then remembered she had told him to leave twice already.

As she stood there, a wave of nausea rolled over her. Her mouth filled with saliva and a sweat broke out across her forehead as her stomach began churning.

"Not again," she groaned aloud, and as she did every morning and sometimes several times a morning, she fought the sickness with everything she had.

She knew she would lose and that she wouldn't feel better until she had turned her stomach inside out, but she detested this constant sickness, thought that surely it should be over at this point of her pregnancy. She braced a hand on a porch post and bowed her head, breathing hard through her nose and trying to think of neutral things that were not likely to make her sick.

Instead, her mind presented her with a series of disgusting images and remembered smells, and with a whimper, she ran to the far corner of the porch with a hand clapped over her mouth. She barely made it to the edge before she was sick off the side of it.

When she was empty, she leaned hard against a post for a moment, feeling weak, and waited for the tremors to pass.

She had just made up her mind that she was probably going to live when she heard a noise behind her. She whirled, felt dizzy at the sudden movement, and swayed back against the post.

Jimmy was standing at the other end of the porch, looking wide-eyed with worry and uncertainty of what to do.

She groaned again and wiped the clammy sweat from her face with a trembling hand. "Can't you just _go_ _away_?"

"No. Are you alright? Do you need me to get a doctor?" he asked anxiously, eyes searching her face.

She shook her head. "I'm fine."

"You sure? You look pretty green."

" _Thanks_ ," she responded with enough tartness in her voice to make him smile. She almost smiled back from simple habit with him, barely stopped herself.

"Maybe you oughta take it easy today," he suggested. "I took care of the horses...working on clearing the storage area so I can fix the roof. Why don't you rest until you are feeling better?"

"I can't pay you if that's what you are after," she snapped suddenly, eyeing him with hostility and not wanting to be in his debt.

His eyes flared with annoyance. "You think that is what I am after? You think I am looking for work as your _hired hand?_ "

"How the hell would I know?" she snapped back at him, even though she did know.

"Because you know _me_ , damn it," he growled.

"You're wrong about that. I thought I did once, but I was wrong," she shot back and left him on the porch while she went back inside, hearing him curse her softly as she shut the door.

* * *

He spent the day in physical labor, trying to tire out his body enough to still his mind. He hauled, chopped, dragged and cleared until his arms felt like lead weights.

When the sun went down and the horses were fed, there had been no sign of Lou since morning. Alone, his mind kept racing, remembering and rehashing the last conversations he had had with Kid, the last conversations he would _ever_ have with Kid. His damned mind hadn't shut off for two full days now.

Thinking about the last time he had seen Kid inevitably brought his thoughts around to the last time he had seen Lou before she left Rock Creek.

He tried to avoid that memory at all costs. Avoiding that memory was, he supposed, the reason he had misjudged her reaction to him showing up here.

"Damn it," he hissed at last. He got off his bedroll on the bare tack room bunk despite the protests of his muscles, dressing again and jamming his hat on his head.

He rode out towards town a few minutes later, saw the curtain on the bunkhouse window pull back and fall again as she watched him go.

"Don't get your hopes up. I'm comin' back," he muttered out loud.

Three shots of whiskey later, his mind was still buzzing with the harsh words and blows he and Kid had traded in those final months before all-out war. Worse than that was the memory of Lou's white face in agony; the last glimpse he'd had of her. He clenched his teeth against the pain the thoughts inflicted, ordered another drink.

When the pretty dark-haired whore sidled up to him, he started to send her away with a sharp word, then changed his mind.

Upstairs, he buried himself in her mindlessly. He found release both of body and mind for a minute, but as always he felt vaguely dissatisfied and guilty afterwards for using the girl curled against his side, though she seemed pleased enough with him and herself.

He didn't ever know what to say to women like her anymore. She was not what he wanted; they never were. Her hair was too dark, eyes too light, limbs too long, body too curvy, manner too practiced. She smelled of something too flowery. Lou had smelled faintly of clean soap and oranges under the dust yesterday when he had held her for that brief moment.

But Lou hated him from the looks of it, had some cause to, he supposed. Even if she hadn't, she certainly was not his, so he wasn't sure what the hell else a man was supposed to do.

At least this way he couldn't disappoint another woman expecting him to be something or someone he couldn't be. Better this way for everyone, he told himself though he knew Rachel disapproved and Emma sure as hell would have. His sister too. He didn't venture a guess what Lou would think, but it wouldn't have been good.

In defiance of that thought, he had the girl again, and several more drinks before his brains felt too soft to form a solid thought. Stumbling slightly several hours later, he pushed away from the bar and turned, walking right into a young man that had stopped behind him.

"Sorry," he slurred and started around the man.

"So you're the big gun the widow hired?" the man asked, blocking his way.

"I ain't..." he started to mutter, then decided there was no point. Shaking his head, he growled, "let me pass."

"Don't guess I blame you for looking for pleasure in town. My father said the widow looked used up…though I seen her riding the land a few times and if she can sit a horse like that, I bet she'd sit a man just fine too."

Blood rushed in Jimmy's ears and like a reflex, he swung sloppily at the man in front of him. His blow was ducked easily, and the stranger drove a fist into Jimmy's jaw, knocking him to the ground.

He chuckled as Jimmy tried to pick himself up.

"Some protection. This will be easier than we thought."

"You leave her alone!" Jimmy threatened, the room spinning. "I'll sober up sooner or later."

The man shook his head, disgust and amusement in his expression. "Be seeing you... _Wild Bill_."

Jimmy said a very impolite word, and climbed to his feet as the man left the saloon.

He was glad his palomino remembered the way home, because he wasn't sure he would have. It took him three tries to climb down from the saddle. He lurched up the bunkhouse stairs, had trouble deciding how high to pick up his feet at each new riser.

"Jesus, I'm pretty drunk," he admitted aloud to his horse over his shoulder.

He fell against the bunkhouse door, trying to push it open, found himself confused when it was bolted. It had rarely ever been locked in his memory.

"Open up, dammit, it's me!" He yelled, beating at the door hard with his fist. When there was no answer, he howled in annoyance and slammed his shoulder into the door, trying to break the lock.

It didn't budge and he hit it again, then leaned heavily against it, breathing hard.

When the door suddenly swung open, he lost his balance and pitched headfirst over the threshold, his chest and cheek breaking his fall when his hands were too slow to catch him. Groaning, he rolled over and looked up, squinting against the low light of the lantern as if it was the blazing sun.

Lou was standing over him, wearing a white nightgown. Despite the fact it covered her from neck to toes, the light behind her outlined her shape beneath the lightweight garment. He stared up at her for a long moment, wanting her despite the fact he'd just had the other woman in hopes of putting her out of his mind.

When his gaze eventually made it up to her pale face, he saw her eyes were wild in terror and that she held her gun with a trembling hand.

She knew it was him, but she was scared anyway, and that realization would have dropped him if he hadn't already been laying there on her floor. Her fear of him sobered him more quickly than cold water to the face.

He'd just...forgotten.

Forgot he didn't live in this house that had been one of his only real homes, forgot that she was there alone, that she had come from a war-torn state where any approaching individual was likely to be a threat to her safety or her life.

Then again, his whole goal tonight had been to forget.

He never, in a hundred years, would have wanted to make her afraid. Shame burned into him, hot and consuming.

"I'm...I'm…Lou, I'm..." he stuttered, laying there on the floor under her gun.

"Drunk. You're blind drunk. And you smell like a whore," she snarled at him, though her voice still trembled in held-over fear.

"Yeah," he acknowledged, and struggled to pick himself up.

She didn't help him, backing away from him, keeping her gun in her hand.

"Lou, I wouldn't ever hurt you...I just...I forgot I didn't live here anymore, all right? You caint think I would do you harm." he said when he stood more or less on his own feet, with the help of the doorway.

She still said nothing, her face and hair still wild, her hand still white-knuckled around the gun. He thought he saw the glint of tears in her eyes, but he found he couldn't meet her gaze squarely enough to be sure.

Slurring another string of apologies, he let himself out of the bunkhouse, closing the door behind him and flinching when he heard her immediately bolt the door behind him again.


	5. A Time to Rend

A Time To Rend

 _Rock Creek, Nebraska Territory, May 1861_

Noah's death ripped their family in half. They never recovered from his loss or the way it had happened. Kid blamed Rosemary, made no secret about it, and Jimmy felt obliged to defend her loudly and publicly. Kid and Jimmy circled each other like wolves afterwards, looking for weaknesses before they moved in for the killing blow to their friendship.

Lou watched their friendship fail as surely as the express was failing, and both hurt her terribly. She was hopelessly caught in the middle, and trying to hold them, and the rest of her family, together with both hands.

She made overtures toward Rosemary who seemed to be staying for the duration. She felt much the same as Kid, but was quieter about it. She thought that if Jimmy cared for her, she should make an effort, but Rosemary had not been receptive to the cautious friendship Lou had offered, had not trusted the wife of a Southerner...and there had been something else.

Lou slowly realized, with the aid of an off-hand comment made by Teaspoon, that Rosemary resented her friendship with Jimmy, was threatened by their closeness. In ways big and small, the widow had done her best to pull Jimmy away from her, away from all of them, in fact.

Lou had thought more than once that no one could suck the joy from a room faster than Rosemary Burke.

Once a week, they still had Sunday dinner together at the station, even though Kid and Lou were renting rooms over the land office in Rock Creek, and Cody had stopped riding for the express as his services as a Scout were more in demand. It was important to Rachel and Lou, and so they all made a point to religiously attend, even as their easy conversation and laughter had dwindled to awkward small talk or sullen silences after politics was brought to the table, usually by Rosemary.

Teaspoon had talked for a while of fighting for Texas and the South but it seemed the last months' hardships had taken all his fire. Losing Noah, and Jesse in an entirely different way, had aged him. It broke Lou's heart, she knew Rachel and Jimmy were also especially saddened by his diminished spirit.

Cody and Jimmy had taken their grief and anger over Noah and let it fuel their hatred of the Southern cause. For Noah, they wanted the South on its knees.

Buck remained quiet on the matter knowing better than any of them what a divided world looked like. Lou also supposed the plight of the slaves seemed more distant to him than the plight of the people of his blood...and no one was willing to fight a war for the Indians.

As the express drew towards a close, Kid was silent about his plans, and they all wondered where he stood, had even asked Lou from time to time. She had evaded the questions and watched Virginia.

Kid hadn't spoken to her of his intentions recently, but she had known anyway. Kid would go with Virginia, because remaining neutral was becoming impossible. She prayed and wished fervently that Virginia would stay in the Union, all the while knowing smart money had Virginia following her agrarian sisters in rebellion.

The powder keg that was their family had exploded around the Sunday dinner table when news that Virginia had left the Union had reached them in the last days of Spring, from the lips of Rosemary.

"Virginia voted for secession last week," Rosemary said, eyes pinned on Kid. "I guess the slavers always stick together in the end."

The pregnant silence that followed was like the quiet before a storm unleashed its fury.

Lou hadn't yet heard the news; she'd had no idea that this particular dinner would be their last or she would have made an effort to be more present for it.

As it was her stomach had been jittery with butterflies over the news she and Kid had agreed they would share with their family that evening, knowing if they kept it quiet much longer Lou's changing body would reveal the truth anyway. She had been hopeful that the news that she was four months gone with a baby would bring back the smiles to the faces of the boys, Teaspoon, and Rachel. She had been so distracted by excitement that she only half-heard the comment that brought the war to the bunkhouse table.

"You're from Virginia, aren't you Kid?" Rosemary persisted.

Kid looked steadily at Rosemary and said nothing. Jimmy called Rosemary down with a harsh word that was unlike him. There were finally some fissures appearing in their foundation. Though she suspected it was wrong of her to feel it, Lou was relieved to see that Rosemary was losing her hold on Jimmy, prayed it would happen before she used him to whatever end she seemed to have in mind. Lou didn't want to see him hurt again.

"What of it?" Kid asked, looking at Rosemary steadily.

Lou had the distinct thought that the dislike that showed openly on Kid's face was completely alien to his usual amiable expression and good nature; she suddenly realized that his face had been pulled into those miserable lines more often than not lately. He wasn't happy, she realized with a hard jolt to her heart. He was being torn in two, between the family he had found and the land he loved. She had tried to pretend it wasn't happening, day after day, but she saw with sudden clarity that the price of her avoidance had been high where Kid was concerned.

Rosemary persisted. "Well, will you fight to defend slavery?"

"It ain't any of your business," Lou had snapped at the same time Jimmy said with conviction, "Of course Kid ain't gonna fight for the South!"

Kid had looked at Lou, both of them silently acknowledging the moment for their happy news had passed.

"I am going home," Kid said quietly, then corrected himself, putting a hand over Lou's. "We are going home."

"Thought you were already home," Cody murmured. "And Virginia ain't ever been Lou's home."

"I'll make it her home," Kid snapped, but his eyes softened as he looked to her and said quietly, "I promise you, Lou."

She had swallowed hard and blinked down her tears. She had known this day was coming, though he had only said so once to her, long ago, over a campfire.

 _Lou, if this war starts..._ when _it starts, if folks try to take away my memories, I'm going back home._

There was another stunned pause in the room.

Jimmy spoke first. "You can't really be thinking of fighting for the South, Kid. It ain't possible."

"I told you he couldn't be trusted!" Rosemary spat at Jimmy. Turned her spiteful eyes towards Lou. "Her either!"

Kid ignored Rosemary, looked at Jimmy. "I ain't fighting for slavery. I am fighting for my home. My family."

"Kid, we are your family now," Rachel reminded him, gently.

Kid looked down, and his voice broke when he said, "If you were really my family you'd understand why I gotta go! But you all been figuring the South was full of nothing but slavers and killers since I known you! All Southerners ain't evil! Damn it, don't you know I'm one of them? This is who I am, who I always been!"

"You called yourself Noah's friend, for God's sake! You saw them put a Goddamned collar around his neck like he was a dog! How can you live with the idea of fighting for the cause that puts a man like Noah in chains?" Jimmy demanded, fist striking the table and rattling both the dishes and Lou's nerves as she startled.

"Maybe the same way _you_ stomach lying next to the fanatic that got him killed for _no fucking reason_!" Kid snarled back, rising from his seat.

Jimmy lunged for Kid straight over the table, knocking plates, glasses and Kid himself to the floor.

Once on the floor, Kid and Jimmy fought like wild things in the grip of berserk rage, and no amount of shouting from Teaspoon, Buck, or Cody had phased them.

" _Stop it!_ " Lou screamed at the top of her voice. "Both of you stop!"

And because she knew she was the only one who could stop them, she leaned down and tried to find a flailing limb to secure so she could pull them apart before they killed each other.

Only they were both so consumed by the inevitable release of months and months of fury with the other, and with the world, that neither of them heard or saw her. Cody and Teaspoon yelled for her to get back. Buck tried to grab her when he realized she was wading into the brawl, but she shrugged him off hard just before one of them, she was never sure which one, caught her square in the stomach with a booted foot in a powerful kick.

The force of the blow knocked her off her feet altogether, and she fell backwards over a chair, landing hard on it and hearing it splinter beneath her in the seconds before she felt the pain. Her back and neck hurt plenty, as did the base of her skull where it smacked against the floor, but it was the clutching, breath-stealing, white-hot lightning low in her belly that brought the shattering scream of agony from her lips.

The primal, wounded sound from her broke Kid and Jimmy apart instantly as if a tie that held them together had suddenly snapped.

She heard them both call her name in unison, caught a glimpse of them madly scrambling toward her as she rolled off the chair she had broken beneath her. Gasping, she curled herself around the center of her pain, trying too late to protect what she had unintentionally endangered.

Her insides were being torn apart. It felt like someone had ripped her spine from the juncture of her hips. She felt a warm rush of fluid soak her simple brown skirt, and knew with great clarity what was happening.

She heard a terrible keening sound as if from a distance and at some point realized it came from her. There were yells from above for someone to fetch a doctor, heavy footsteps that shook the boards below her, slamming doors and shouts of urgency all around.

Kid's face suddenly swam into her vision, obscured by her own tears. He was white as a ghost, his face terrified. Tears started up in his eyes too, and that scared her as much as the pain.

"It's gonna be fine, Lou, you are gonna be okay," he promised repetitively, words stumbling over empty words, and she noticed that he sounded much, much further away than he was.

He scooped her into his arms with great care, as if she were a broken thing and he was gathering all the pieces of her together. As he lifted her, another crushing pain assaulted her, and she screamed again and arched against it, helpless in its vise.

"Oh God please," she heard Rachel say as she felt another rush of warm wetness soak her legs.

"Why is she bleeding like that?" Jimmy demanded in a breathless voice she thought he didn't want her to hear, but panic made him louder and louder, "what is wrong? What is happening to her?"

"She wa-... _is_ carrying a child," Rachel told Jimmy, correcting herself quickly, but Lou caught what Rachel had almost said.

"She is losing it," Rosemary had clarified, voice shaking with emotion Lou would not have counted on from her.

" _No_!" Jimmy had gasped and he had called her name once, voice full of anguish.

Lou's head lolled back as the pain released her briefly, and Kid hurried toward the door with her in his arms.

In the next moments, several images burned into her memory like brands, stayed with her in perfect, terrible clarity: The bright red blood soaking Kid's sleeve and hand as he balanced her and pushed open the door. The view over his shoulder of the bunkhouse in shambles with broken glass and overturned chairs everywhere. The sheen of her lifeblood on the otherwise dull, dusty floorboards. And lastly, flashes of the ashen faces of Jimmy, Rachel, and Teaspoon who stood rooted in shocked horror.

Then Kid was running through the streets with her in his arms towards the doctor's house, and the bunkhouse was growing smaller and smaller, eventually disappearing from sight. She never went back there.

* * *

She lay in the doctor's house for over a week; she nearly lost her life in addition to their baby. She almost bled to death in the hours that followed the nightmarish scene from the bunkhouse. When the bleeding stopped, fever set in and her body and mind burned for days.

She heard the doctor explaining to Kid that the placenta had ruptured, either when she had been struck or in the fall afterwards. He said to Kid more than once how very unusual this sort of thing was so early in a pregnancy, as if that was in some way a comforting thought for either Kid or herself.

The doctor said little to her beyond kind pleasantries, leaving Kid to comfort her and explain what had happened. It had been Kid to tell her in a breaking voice the baby had been a boy. He had held her through long storms of weeping, had sat at her bed for nearly 50 hours straight while the fever raged, had done everything under the sun to lessen her pain.

All the while, his pale face had been tightly controlled, his grief held in check while he helped her through hers. He blamed himself, Lou knew, almost as much as he blamed Jimmy.

For her part, she wasn't angry, just sad down to the bottom of her soul, and the doctor's well-meant comments that she was a young woman who would have plenty more children did nothing to ease her grief for _this_ child she grieved.

She knew it had been an accident. A tragic one, but neither Kid nor Jimmy would have ever hurt her on purpose. She blamed no one for what had happened, except perhaps herself for so foolishly moving in on their fight.

She planned to tell Jimmy so, the same way she had assured Kid of it, just as soon as he came to see her. She knew he would be torturing himself over what had happened, would have taken it all on his shoulders. She knew it with certainty, as much as she knew him.

But he didn't come.

None of them did.

She thought maybe it was just because they didn't want to intrude on the doctor's home. She thought they were probably waiting to visit her when she was cleared to go back to her own rented rooms and ordered to stay in bed another week.

But none of them came to see her there either, to make sure she was all right, to offer condolences, to see if she or Kid needed anything.

Kid had been tight-lipped and reluctant to discuss them when she had brought it up, his anger still ruling him where they were concerned. But she was too tired to be angry, too weak. Their absence just compounded her grief.

When she and Kid left Rock Creek a week later, they did so without a single goodbye from even one of the people she loved most in the world.


	6. A Time to Fight

_A Time to Fight_

For weeks, they existed in the same space, but went entirely separate ways. They'd spoken a few times in passing when it had been impossible to avoid it.

The morning after Jimmy had drunkenly tried to enter the bunkhouse, he approached her, sheepishly. She stopped cold and watched him coming towards her, wishing there was somewhere to escape.

"Lou, I wanted to apologize...I just...I wasn't myself last night. Look, I know you been living in a place where anyone riding up on you unexpected was likely a deserter or the enemy, and I can't guess the scare me coming up and trying to break your door down gave you...but I need to tell you Lou, that I'd never do you harm and judging from the look on your face last night, I ain't so sure you know that."

"Yeah, I do," she disagreed, hesitated and then added, "I just-it was...it was a long war, Jimmy." She said it without any fight or malice, shrugging.

"Yeah, it was, Lou."

She nodded and met his eyes briefly before continuing toward the barn.

Every morning after, Lou emerged to find Jimmy already at work on whatever task he deemed important for that day, with no direction or input from her. One day he was working on the main house's broken stairs, the next on the barn, the next he had climbed the windmill and was oiling the gears, the thought of the height bringing her morning sickness on a little more quickly than normal.

Near as she could tell he worked sunup to sundown most days, alongside her, but not with her. He was pouring his blood and sweat into the place, into _her_ place, and asking nothing in return. She wasn't sure why he insisted on it, was uncomfortable feeling in debt to him, wanted to ask him why he was bothering after the way they had left things.

At the end of the day, she was begrudgingly relieved to have him there. Not only was he a strong back, there were signs of trouble and she thought it might get worse before it got better.

First, a fence was cut in the big pasture bordering Silas Warner's land, and Lou was lucky to see it before any of the six new horses she had bought at the auction in Blue Creek got loose. She had no proof it had been cut intentionally, but when she mentioned it to Jimmy, his suspicions had been the same as hers. Warner. She forbid him from going after Warner with a sharp word. They had no proof, and she refused to let Warner rattle her, at least visibly.

She'd been riding fence checking for additional tampering constantly. One such day, while riding, the skin at the back of her neck tightened with the knowledge she was being watched. A young man on horseback emerged from a nearby stand of trees when it was obvious she knew he was there. He rode towards her with purpose, aggressively even. Lou yelled at him to slow his approach, but he just smiled grimly and kept coming until she drew the gun and aimed between his eyes.

He pulled up sharply, surprised she was armed, and sat ten horse lengths away, watching her for long moments, while she kept her gun trained and took his measure. He was lanky, younger than her by several years, and cocky-looking. She guessed by the fine horse he rode and the cut of his clothes that he could be Warner's son, but it was just a guess and she wasn't in the mood for introductions.

"State your business or go," she growled at him.

"Just being friendly," he said with a look that let her know he was being anything but. "You ain't being very neighborly. You don't even know who I am."

She didn't care who he was. She did not like how he was leering at her, how he had been shadowing her. He was on her property and she wanted him off.

He sat under her gun, unmoving, as did she while she waited for his next move. She was afraid he was going to force her hand to violence. He sensed her concern, mistook it for weakness. When he urged his horse toward her again, she put a bullet in the dust inches from his horse's advancing hooves. The horse and the boy looked equally spooked by her accuracy and it was, thankfully, enough to turn him back.

She sat there, gun still aimed at him while he retreated a little too slowly for her taste. Her hand was steady, but her heart was somewhere in her throat when he crossed off her land. Only after he was gone from sight did her arms and legs turn boneless.

She didn't tell Jimmy about the boy, feeling as if Jimmy might do something rash. She wasn't sure yet the best way to approach the problem, but she thought riding in with guns blazing was probably not the way to go about dealing with a man like Warner.

* * *

She threw that thought to the wind the next day.

Jimmy was working on patching a window in the main house and she was in the round pen with one of her new horses the following day when a well-dressed older man rode in from town. Warily, she met the visitor in the station yard. She noticed that Jimmy suddenly found something to work on a little closer to where the small man dismounted.

"Hello, Mrs. McCloud. My name is Vernon Bailey and I am a solicitor in Sweetwater. One of my clients is Mr. Silas Warner," he explained to her.

Lou nodded a cautious greeting and waited to hear his business, had a feeling she wasn't going to like it. When his eyes paused over her shoulder at Jimmy's darkly looming presence, she offered no introductions.

"Well, ma'am, Mr. Warner said he had made your acquaintance and spoken to you about purchasing your property."

"It was a short conversation, as I told him it was not for sale."

He blinked in surprise at that and she figured Warner had neglected to tell his lawyer that small detail. He cast about for something to say a moment, then persisted. "Mrs. McCloud, he felt sure once you saw this offer drawn up legally that you would entertain it, so he had me prepare a contract."

Lou felt her cheeks heat in anger. "I am sorry but it looks like Mr. Warner has wasted your time as well as mine," she said through clenched teeth. "This place ain't for sale at any price, like I already told him."

The deviation from the events Vernon Bailey had planned in his head had clearly flustered the little man. He stuttered for a moment, hands worrying the envelope she supposed contained the offer.

"Ma'am, I hate to tell Mr. Warner that you didn't even look at the offer," he finally said nervously, "it really is quite generous."

"Is that it?" Lou muttered, nodding toward the envelope.

"Yes ma'am," he said hopefully, extending it to her.

She took the envelope, stared at the outside of it a long moment. Then with a voice that trembled with rage she told the lawyer, "Don't worry. I will tell him myself."

She turned on her heel, met Jimmy's surprised stare and charged by him towards the round pen. She swung up on the gray horse she had been working and with Jimmy's cry to _wait a minute, dammit Lou!_ ringing in her ears, she headed out of the station at a gallop.

The ride did nothing to improve her mood, and neither did hearing hoofbeats far behind her and seeing that Jimmy was giving chase. She called to the horse and leaned forward, pleased with her choice to purchase her when the mare lengthened her neck and dug in to increase her speed, opening the gap between them.

She'd known too many men like Warner. Men who refused to take no for an answer, who pushed and wheedled or simply took when they got tired of waiting. She was not going to allow this one to take the only thing she had left.

She turned her horse under the large wooden entrance to the ranch bordering hers, The Bar W. It had not been there in the express days. There were cattle on either side of the long drive leading to a large barn, a larger house, and several outbuildings she guessed were bunkhouses. The house was made of wood and stone, beautifully crafted. It was abundantly clear that Warner had money, plenty of it.

The front door opened and Warner himself walked out on the porch. Several men drifted out of the bunkhouse and the barn to watch her rapid approach. She pulled her horse up just before the mare leapt on the porch where Warner stood. The horse skidded close enough to the edge to have him take a step back, which gave Lou grim satisfaction.

"Why, Mrs. McCloud, to what do we owe the pleasure?" Warner murmured, recovering quickly.

Lou pulled out the sealed envelope with the offer and ripped it half, and then half again, throwing the pieces onto the porch at Warner's feet.

Without a word, she turned her horse's head away to begin riding home.

"Mrs. McCloud, do you have any idea who I am?" Warner called after her.

There was a brief pause as Jimmy came roaring down the drive bareback on Sundance, pulling up close enough to Lou to assist should there be trouble.

"I don't give a damn who you are. What you are not is the owner of my property, and you never will be." Lou said flatly. She saw several of the men shift uncomfortably and look with wide-eyes toward their boss. Lou supposed they weren't used to hearing him challenged.

The door to the house opened, and the boy who had followed her the day before appeared with a smug-looking smile.

"Your son?" Lou wondered.

"Meet Jacob Warner," Silas acknowledged, with a glance at his son.

"You keep your boy off my land, Mr. Warner. Next time he comes at me like he did yesterday, I'll shoot him." She saw the look that passed between father and son, gathered that the former had not known about the latter's visit. She saw anger at the boy in Silas' expression, but he hid it quickly.

"Thought that is what you hired that fellow to do?" Warner's son inquired, gesturing toward Jimmy. "When he ain't whoring in town, that is."

"If I were you, I wouldn't think too hard. You might hurt yourself," Lou snapped back and saw the boy bristle. Several of the hands dipped their heads to hide what Lou suspected were smiles of amusement. Silas might have the respect of his men, but Jacob Warner did not.

"You're making a big mistake, Mrs. McCloud. I don't think you realize how big," Silas finally said in a low voice so that only those men that were close by could hear them.

"Stay off my property," Lou returned, her voice loud enough for all of them to hear, "Or you'll learn what a big mistake looks like."

With that, she wheeled her horse around, nodded briefly to Jimmy, who turned his horse with hers. They started back down the long drive at a slower pace than they had ridden in, side by side.

She felt the spot between her shoulder blades burn with the glares of the Warner men, decided she was lucky there were too many witnesses in the yard for them to put a bullet there instead.

* * *

Jimmy watched Lou intently as they turned onto the main road and back toward the station. She still looked angry, but she was calmer now that she'd had her say. His heart was still beating hard after the scare she had given him, charging into trouble by herself.

Lou, feeling his stare, turned and met his eyes, raising an eyebrow in invitation of his thoughts.

"That Warner boy came after you?" he asked. "When?"

"Yesterday. He followed me while I was riding fence...came up fast on me."

He hesitated, irritated that he hadn't known, that she hadn't bothered to mention it. Then again, last week she had gone to Blue Creek without telling him and his heart had stopped until the next day when she had reappeared with a string of six new horses. She clearly was not bothered by keeping her business her own."Why didn't you say nothin'?"

"Because I handled it," Lou snapped back. "Despite what they think, you are _not_ my hired gun, remember?"

"They want to buy the station?" Jimmy clarified, choosing not to pick up that particular argument.

She nodded. "He's offering me three times what it's worth."

He hesitated. "You...you don't want to sell?"

"I caint," she said simply and he took that answer without further question, saw her sigh in relief when he nodded without pushing the issue further. She turned her gaze back to the road.

"He's got a lot of men, Lou," Jimmy pointed out.

"I saw em."

"Lou...we...we might need help before it's done. Teaspoon and Buck, and Cody if he can get the leave...they'd be here in a minute if you needed them. You know that?"

Lou kept her eyes forward. He had brought her letters from Rachel as well as telegrams from the boys, but he wasn't sure if she had read them or treated them similarly to Warner's offer.

"I can handle it," she said flatly.

Jimmy, finding himself in the longest conversation he'd managed with her since arriving almost a month back, didn't push the issue. He nodded. "All right. It's your call."

After a long pause, Lou murmured. "Jimmy, I...I wanted to thank you...for all your help at the station. I don't know why you done it, but thank you all the same."

He wanted to tell her why he had done it, but figured she wouldn't believe him. Not yet. He had more work to do. He simply nodded instead.

"But what's comin' ain't your fight Jimmy. You ain't bound to stay cause I am."

"I'm stayin'." He repeated flatly before her words had died, not caring if it risked her temper or her shutting him out again.

She glanced at him long enough to see he meant it, he guessed, because she sighed and conceded, "Figured you would say that. Jimmy...you been doing so much work on the main house. Maybe you should stay there instead of in the barn. The nights are getting cooler."

"Lou...I wouldn't feel right stayin' in the house with you in the bunkhouse. It's _your_ house...but I can have it ready for you to move in there in a week," Jimmy promised.

She shook her head. "I...I don't want to leave the bunkhouse right now."

He heard the tremor in her voice, and thought the reason she didn't want to leave the bunkhouse was to do with Kid, and her memories of him there. It reminded him of the pain and grief she must feel nearly every second and he swallowed hard, ached for her, wish he knew what to say or do for her.

"There's no sense in the house going empty. You'll think on it?" she asked him, her voice thick. She turned toward him, flooring him when her big eyes looked fully into his. Her stare was cautious, but not hostile. It was progress.

He nodded. "I'll think on it, Lou."

She nodded, and they rode the rest of the way home side by side quietly, the silence feeling much less strained than what he had endured since coming back to her.


	7. A Time to Lose

A Time To Lose

She lay motionless on Kid's bunk, worrying about Warner, his next move, and what she was getting herself, and Jimmy-since he was hellbent on staying, into.

"Maybe I should sell, take the money...start over somewhere new," she said aloud, tears stinging her eyes at the thought of it. "I know what we talked about, but I don't think I have another war in me, Kid."

She curled herself around her belly, holding onto the small roundness there, miserable and unsure of herself and her new world.

It was so subtle at first she thought she imagined it, but her breath caught in her throat and she froze, waiting to see if it came again, desperately wishing for it.

It did. Far beneath her hands, there was a butterfly doing flips in her belly, softer than a whisper but sure as sunrise. It was the first time she had felt the baby within her move...the first time she had felt either of their two babies move.

Tears of gratitude sprang up, spilled over, and a delighted laugh escaped her lips. And before she knew it she was both laughing and crying with joy like a madwoman. Her laugh sounded alien, like something she had never heard before.

"He's really there, Kid!" She exclaimed. "He's real!"

She looked around the quiet bunkhouse, half-hoping to catch a glimpse of Kid, some sign he was with her. This is where her life had truly started, where she felt Kid more than anywhere else. This place was the only legacy they had, and their baby would know Kid only through his connection to this place.

She lay there, gratitude washing through her, her heart lighter than it had been. Resolve came next. "All right," she murmured, but she was talking to the baby this time. "We'll fight."

* * *

 _February 27 1861, Rock Creek Nebraska Territory_

She paced the floor across the length of their small rented rooms, turned around and did it again, as she had been for the last half-hour.

Kid was due home from his run, and she had news.

She was admittedly nervous. She had no idea how he would feel about the fact the doctor had confirmed to her that she was going to have a baby.

They had talked about having children, but in distantly abstract terms. Now, with the impending war holding their future, and the future of the whole nation, hostage, it hardly seemed an ideal time to start their family.

To add to her concerns, it was becoming clear that the days of the express were numbered.

It was terrible timing.

Still, her heart leapt with excitement at the thought of being a mother, which surprised her because she had been so hesitant to take on the role of wife. She just wasn't sure how Kid, who was already brooding with worry over the uncertain times, might feel about this added responsibility.

He came in with a blast of cold air, covered in mud. She could tell from one look at him that it had been a bad ride and that he was ready to drop.

There was a rush of jealousy that swept through her, even given that he looked miserable. She still missed the bone-weariness that followed the hard rides, the physical exhaustion. She was often restless these days, found herself at a loss of how to exercise her anxiousness away from the 75-mile trail that used to challenge her body and quiet her mind.

"Hey Lou," he smiled, and she knew he was glad to see her, but the smile didn't reach all the way into his eyes.

"What's wrong?" she asked him immediately, as he wrestled his mud-caked boots off just inside the door and then started peeling the top layers of damp clothes off.

He gave her the mystified look he always did when she read his mind. He sighed and told her, "Texas approved the referendum for secession too. And the Southern States have inaugurated Jefferson Davis as President. Lincoln will be inaugurated in a couple of weeks."

Lou bit her lip. It seemed whenever any of the boys came back from a run to the East, they brought the war closer and closer. New states were leaving the union, arsenals and federal property were being seized. Secession was like a contagion that had started slowly but was now raging across the Southern States.

"Virginia?" she asked quietly.

He simply shook his head, indicating no news, lips tightly pressed.

Lou sighed, decided her own news could wait until the shadow of the war moved off them. The bubble of excitement in her belly burst, was replaced by the dread that seemed to have taken up residence there since Noah died some months back.

However, Kid spotted the little package she had tied up in a yellow ribbon and placed on the middle of their small table along with their dinner. "What's this?" he asked with a sweet, but tired, smile.

"It's noth-" she started to say, but stopped abruptly because she was superstitious enough not to dismiss the baby so easily. "It's a surprise, but maybe it can wait a bit until you rest?"

Kid, relieved of the dirtiest layers of his clothes, came to her, putting his arms around her and kissing her thoroughly. She could feel the cold on his skin.

"l could use a nice surprise," he grinned and moved cool lips up her neck until he found her earlobe, making her scrunch her neck and squeak as chills broke out all along her body. She heard the widening smile in his voice at her reaction, "Could use some warming up too, once I clean up. I'll rest when I'm dead."

She squirmed and giggled under his touch, but he held her tightly.

"Can I?" he whispered against her neck, tasting her skin there and bringing on a whole different kind of chills.

"Mmm?" she asked, very distracted but inclined to grant him permission to do whatever he liked at the moment.

"Open it?"

Lou took a deep breath, nervousness eclipsing the desire she felt. "All right. Open it."

He looked like a boy himself when he took the package, testing its weight mischievously, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips.

Lou watched his face, anxiously, as he tugged the ribbon and opened the lid of the little box.

When he saw what was inside, his face registered bemusement, then outright confusion. Slowly he reached in the box and withdrew the silver rattle she had bought at Tompkins store. It looked ridiculously small pinched in his big fingers.

He looked at her, brow lowered with lack of comprehension, and Lou arched her own brows expectantly, waiting for him to get it.

When he did get it, the truth seemed to run all over him like stampeding horses, flattening him. His eyes went wide, his face a shade paler, and his lips parted for words that would not come as he looked incredulously at her.

"Lou?" he finally managed to inquire, voice pitched high.

Despite her worry at how he would take the news, a laugh escaped her at his panicked expression.

"Yes?"

"You're...we're…. _I'm_ …?" he stammered wildly and then dropped his gaze to her midsection incredulously, mouth hanging open.

"Yeah," she said, felt tears touch her eyes as she said for the first time, "you're gonna be a Daddy."

"But... _how?"_

She giggled again, reminded herself she'd had a full day and a half to wrap her mind around what Kid was grappling with now. "I was under the impression you knew _exactly_ how, Kid. But you see when a man and a woman-"

She stopped talking abruptly when he glared at her with fire in his eyes, incredulous that she might make a joke at this moment.

He stood there dumbstruck, alternately looking at the rattle and at her still-flat stomach, as if the baby might pop out any second.

"If it's alright, I'm gonna start eatin' while you sort this out," Lou finally muttered, sitting down at the table without waiting for his response. What had been amusing at first to her was quickly turning aggravating. It was as if the thought that _this_ might happen had never crossed his thoughts.

She could get no read on his stunned expression, could not tell if in addition to the shock he was pleased, but he did not look it. For sure, he was not leaping in joy.

It hurt her feelings, and inexplicably there were tears burning her eyes, which frustrated and dismayed her, though the doctor had warned her that moodiness was common in the early weeks. Watching him try to process the information, she felt like she had done something wrong, even though he was exactly as responsible as she was.

"Kid?" she finally whispered.

His wide eyes turned to meet hers.

"Say somethin'," she pleaded, voice catching.

The distress in her voice snapped him out of his trance. He looked at her a long moment with great tenderness overtaking his expression. He dropped to one knee at her side, putting one arm around her back, and the other hesitantly, gently, over her stomach.

He poked around lightly, tickling her and she yelped with laughter and stilled his hand, demanding, "Kid, what in the world are you doing?"

"Trying to feel it!"

"Kid...there ain't much to feel yet. It'll be several months before you'll be able to feel the baby move. You can't even tell yet by looking at me. I'm barely six weeks along."

"Can _you_ feel it yet?" he asked, amazed.

"No...not yet. I just been tired, and a little sick off and on these last few weeks."

"But you're sure?" he asked meeting her eyes.

She nodded and his face finally broke into a brilliant smile as the tears spilled down his cheeks. She tasted the salt of them as he put his icy hands on her cheeks and held her there while he kissed her ever so gently.

"You're...happy?" she finally guessed tearfully. "Truly?"

He leaned his forehead against hers, his voice thick. "Yeah, Lou. Happier than I ever thought I would be. Happier than I got any right to be."

"I know the timing ain't perfect," Lou ventured, giving him permission to express his concerns.

He surprised her. "I can't think of a better time for happiness, for something to look forward to, Lou. This is a blessing."

Lou smiled through her own tears, comforted, relieved. "You're going to be a wonderful father, Kid."

She saw fear and doubt flash in his expression, knew as well as she knew him that he was thinking of his own abusive father. He squared his shoulders with resolve and met her gaze squarely. "I can tell you one thing, Lou. I'm sure gonna try. The most important thing I'm ever gonna do in this life is try to be a good father and a husband worthy of you. I love you."

And he drew her from the chair, into his lap, and held her as tightly as he dared there on the floor, his cold lips pressed to her forehead.

* * *

She awoke so much in the grip of the memory that she could still feel the icy brand of his kiss on her brow and taste the salt of his tears on her lips.

She clenched her teeth against the pain, knowing Kid and her first baby were gone, just memories. It was the highest form of cruelty, the waking after seeing him so vividly, and having the sharp edge of reality sever the false happiness it brought her.

She always wished she could go back to Kid when she woke from these dreams and find him in sleep, but he was elusive, coming and going from her subconscious as he pleased. In the first weeks after he had left her, she had scarcely left the bed, preferring the escape the occasional dreams of him offered.

She tried to roll over and go back to sleep, praying to pick up exactly where the dream had left off, with her in his arms, but the thing that had awakened her in the first place broke through her grogginess at last.

Smoke. A lot of it in the air. And the horses were neighing loudly in distress from the corral. She heard retreating hoofbeats, feared the horses had gotten loose.

She glanced toward the window. It was late, it should have been full dark, but she could see the flickering of what had to be large flames throwing shadows against the curtains from outside.

In instant panic, she bolted from the bunk and tore across the room, throwing open the door and gasping when she saw the first floor of the main house engulfed in flames that were quickly moving up the structure toward the second floor. She glanced over to see the horses still in the corral, pacing and neighing nervously.

"Fire!" she screamed as she started running toward the barn for a bucket, and to wake Jimmy.

She stumbled mid-stride as a horrifying thought hit her like a blow. _Jimmy_. He had, at her insistence, moved to the main house a few days back.

She turned frantically back toward the house, eyes searching for signs of him, signs he had made it out. She didn't see him anywhere. Her eyes drifted up the burning structure where the bedrooms were located. She saw nothing but deadly smoke and leaping flames.

"No, no, no, no, no," she gasped over and over as she changed directions mid-stride and turned back across the yard toward the house.

She rushed through the white picket fence and toward the front porch, kept going until she hit the heat that felt like a solid wall just before the stairs. The intensity and pain of it on her skin forced her back. She squared her shoulders and tried to surge forward again, but again the scorching of her skin was too much and she couldn't push past.

"Jimmy!" She screamed, over and over, coughing as the smoke invaded her mouth and nose. It was no use...she couldn't get close to the front door.

She ran back out of the fence and around the back of the house, praying to find him there. Her tears nearly blinded her when she didn't. She cast a glance upwards again at the second story, now engulfed in flames, and couldn't imagine how anyone in it could be alive.

She couldn't give up though; she could not lose anyone else.

The flames were not as intense at the back of the house, and she ran up to the back door, grabbing the knob and howling in pain as the metal burned her badly, blistering her palm. Cradling the hand, she bent at the waist and felt near to madness as the fire forced her back into the dirt again.

She needed help. She bellowed for it at the top of her lungs, over and over at intervals, in between coughing and hollering Jimmy's name, even realizing there was no one near enough to hear.

The sound of the fire consuming the old wood of the house was deafening, it roared and crackled and hissed like a wild and terrible beast making a kill.

She ran back to the barn, grabbed a single bucket, and went to the water trough to scoop some up. She sloshed most of it onto her nightgown on the first trip across the dust.

Somewhere, in her right mind, it occurred to her how utterly useless a half-full bucket at a time was going to be in fighting the raging inferno that lit the whole station like day. The flames reached toward the sky, the smoke blocked out the moon and stars.

She had no idea what else to do, doing nothing was not an option. Trip after trip she ran the path from the trough to the house, until her arms trembled with exhaustion, and each time she tossed the water, the water fell further and further from the flames and just sloshed over her feet.

She might have been at it minutes, hours, or days. She wasn't sure, but she was halfway across the yard, still sobbing with the effort and with grief, when her legs finally gave out. She crashed down on her knees in the dust, utterly defeated as she recognized she had reached the outer limits of her strength, and that it had not been enough to save Jimmy. Just as it hadn't been enough to save Kid.

Tears blurred her vision. She didn't sob anymore; she was just too spent for that. Instead silent tears washed down her face as she sat there watching the house lose the battle with the fire. The flames for a moment outlined the structure of the old house perfectly as it had always been. It looked eerily beautiful, an enormous glowing skeleton sketched on the dark navy sky.

And then with a last splintering groan, the house simply folded in on itself, the supports collapsing like broken bones.

Lou closed her eyes as a wave of dust, smoke, and grief washed over her, bowing her head against it, wrapping her arms around herself, and feeling as if the heat had petrified her, turned her to stone.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing. That little notification makes my day, and I love hearing your thoughts on the characters and the history and the speculations of what comes next. I do have explanations for everything going on-all will be revealed. In time.

I have to say writing Lou dealing with Kid's death is actually pretty painful. I heard a Charlie Puth song called See You Again the other day, and sat and cried in my car thinking about it in the context of this story and in losing a loved one in general...the chorus of that song inspired this chapter a bit:

 _It's been a long day without you my friend,_

 _And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again_

 _We've come a long way from where we began,_

 _Oh I'll tell you all about it when I see you again, when I see you again._


	8. A Time to Forgive

_A Time to Forgive_

He might have stayed longer, but there was an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach that made his thoughts turn to home and to Lou. He was just slightly drunk enough to think in passing that those two terms meant about the same thing to him. He needed to be home even if that meant staring at the curtains drawn against the bunkhouse windows, needed it more than he needed to be here, he decided.

Although, _here_ did involve a naked woman pressed along his length, her dark hair spilling across his chest and that surely was a mark in it's favor.

Her name was Nellie and she was something of a favorite for him. She pouted prettily when he stood and started pulling his clothes on. "Come on, Jimmy. Just one more?"

He smiled, distracted by other thoughts, and said absently, "I can't afford it, Darlin'."

"What if this one's on the house?" She smiled, rising up to her knees on the bed while he buckled his belt and sliding her hands up his chest and behind his neck to bring his head back down to hers for a kiss.

He roused to her touch, but pulled away, reaching back to find her wrists, and gently disentangling her from him. "And _you_ can't afford that, Nell. Besides, we best keep this businesslike, all right?"

Her eyes flashed with anger and insulted vanity, but she didn't try to stop him again as he left her small room and made his way down the stairs. He considered himself lucky she didn't hurl anything at his retreating head. He walked with purpose out of the saloon.

When he stepped outside, there was smoke hanging low above the street on the still night air. The uneasy feeling he'd had for the last half-hour intensified, and his eyes turned west, almost reluctantly.

He could see the faint glow of what would have to be a large fire beyond the hill. That fire was in the direction and vicinity of the station. In fact, it occurred to him there was nothing else in that area _besides_ the station big enough to burn like that.

"Jesus Christ," he breathed, and ran for his horse.

He imagined a thousand horrible thoughts on the ride home, wasn't sure he'd ever made it in such a short amount of time.

He topped the hill, and saw the burning remnants of the main house collapse on itself.

Part of him was relieved it was the big house, rather than the barn or the bunkhouse, but he felt sick to his stomach until he saw, in the light of the dying fire, Lou there in the yard.

If he had been standing, his legs would not have held him so great was his relief.

Her back was to him and she was sitting on her knees, arms wrapped around herself, head bowed. Her nightdress, which he supposed had been white at some point, was gray with smoke and dirt and ash, and her bare arms were streaked with soot as well. He saw her muddy toes poking out from beneath the hem of the gown as he got closer, saw the overturned bucket at her side. He realized she had battled the fire single-handedly, bucket after bucket, and from the looks of her, she had kept at it for awhile. In fact, he thought it was likely she had fought the fire until she had just collapsed where she kneeled now. She looked impossibly tiny, and nearly broken there in the dust.

She didn't seem to hear him as he pulled his horse up behind her, and he jumped off Sundance while the horse was still moving, running the final steps to her.

He made himself slow down so he didn't scare her, and he walked softly around her, stopping before her. She was filthy, covered in sweat in addition to ash and dirt, and it was several seconds before she raised her head. He could see that tears had washed tracks down her soot-covered and heat-singed cheeks, could see her eyes were red-rimmed and raw from either the smoke or crying. Her eyes were dry now, but glazed over in horror.

"Lou, I'm so sorry," he said, crouching before her in the dust, attributing her grief to losing the house. He almost reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, but stopped himself in time. He bit back the questions running wildly through his head about how the fire had started and what else had happened in the few hours he had been in Sweetwater.

Her eyes rose slowly to meet his, looked through him for a moment vacantly. Then, her gaze sharpened, eyes going wide in disbelief. She said his name once in a voice gone very hoarse, and then, suddenly she launched herself into his arms, knocking him onto his backside.

Bewildered, he shifted his legs and put his arms around her cautiously as she sat across his lap, then held tighter when he felt her trembling. He waited for her to stiffen and fight against his hold as she had the first day he had arrived and tried to comfort her, for her to remember her anger towards him. He was preparing himself for it, he realized, holding back to protect his own feelings.

But she was hysterical, clinging to him, her tears and a string of unintelligible words lost against his neck, the force of her sobbing rocking them both. She held onto him like a drowning man holds a lifeline.

He didn't know if it was fear of what had happened leading up to the fire, or if it was to do with what she had lost, but whatever strong emotion gripped her had her mercilessly in its hold. He brought a hand up to cradle the back of her neck, wrapped the other arm around her back, and held her tighter still. He rocked slowly back and forth, murmuring soft words like he might to a child waking from a nightmare. "You're alright, Lou. It's gonna be alright."

He didn't know how long he sat there, but wouldn't have minded staying there longer. She quieted, but still didn't pull away, sitting there limply in his keeping, her arms around his neck, head heavy against his shoulder.

He finally ventured, "Lou, don't worry. The house can be rebuilt..."

At last she spoke, her voice sounding like she'd swallowed sharp rocks. "I don't care about the damned house...I thought...I thought you were _in_ _the house_."

Guilt ran through every vein in his body, compounded when he realized just what he had been doing while Lou battled a monumental fire, thinking he was burning to death. His cheeks heated with shame; he couldn't remember the last time he had been ashamed enough to blush.

"I was in town. I should have told you I was going...I'm so sorry, Lou."

There was a pause before she cleared her throat and coughed a bit before saying, "I'm sorry too, Jimmy. For how I been actin'." This was said in a low voice that trembled on the edge of tears again. "All I could think sitting here was how awful I had been to you...how I'd never get over you dying thinking I hated you… 'cause I don't hate you, even though maybe things would be simpler if I could."

He held her harder, those words, perhaps oddly, a balm to his spirit. "Lou, you don't ever gotta apologize to me...not after what-"

She sniffled, shook her head and interrupted him. "Don't Jimmy, please, I can't…I don't want to talk about that."

It was an almost desperate plea. He hesitated, glad that her head was tucked below his, that he didn't have to meet her eyes when he said cautiously, "Okay, I won't. But I need to say this much. I miss you, Lou. More than anything, I just miss being your friend." He paused, trying to gain control of his voice. "I was hopin' maybe we could go back to being friends again..."

She was silent for a long minute, and he was afraid he had pushed her too far, that she would withdraw again.

"You...you were the best friend I ever had," she said quietly, her breath hitching. "I ain't saying that there ain't still some raw places, Jimmy, where you and me and the others is concerned. But I'm tired, Jimmy, so tired of feeling so angry, tired of feeling so alone. I miss you too, Jimmy. I been missing you since the last day I saw you."

She looked up at him, tears swimming in her eyes. The words and her tears were his undoing, and his own tears obscured his vision of her for a moment until he blinked them down. "You ain't alone no more Lou."

She nodded, though he saw doubt on her face before she lay her head down again and still held tightly to him.

Finally, he couldn't stand it any longer. "Lou, what the hell happened tonight?"

"I woke up, smelled smoke. By the time I came out of the bunkhouse, the main house was just swallowed up in fire."

"You see anyone?" he asked.

He saw the question took her aback, which told him just how focused she had been on saving his life. It had not occurred to her until he mentioned it that the fire might not have been an accident.

She started to shake her head in the negative, then froze, contemplating.

"Right before I came out, I heard horses running off. I thought it was my horses that had busted out of the corral...but they hadn't."

"I'm going to kill him!" he snarled and would have made a move to do it then if Lou hadn't been in his lap, and both his legs asleep from the awkward way they had fallen together.

"Jimmy, you can't. First of all, me half-hearing horses ain't proof of anything, and even if it was, I didn't see _whose_ horses."

"I know it was the Warners. I ain't sure if it was on the orders of the older, the younger, or both yet, but this was intentional. I ain't got a doubt in my mind about it."

"Maybe," she acknowledged. "They were trying to scare me, I guess. Pretty effective."

He shook his head, hesitated, then remembered he was talking to one of the bravest people he knew. "Lou, I think this is more than that. I think they were trying to kill you."

A shudder went through her. "What do you mean?"

"They don't know you weren't living in the house...I left the porch lantern lit when I left. I think they fired the house assuming you were in it."

He saw the chills rise up on her arms.

" _Why_?" she demanded.

"You know why. So they can get their hands on this land."

"But murder? For a few thousand acres?"

"Men have been killed for a lot less, Lou."

Lou flinched at those words, and he wondered for the millionth time exactly how and when Kid had died. She suddenly disentangled herself from him and he held a hand out for her to use as leverage to push herself to her feet. Once upright, she paced a bit, teeth set against her bottom lip.

At last she said, "Silas Warner saw me come out of the bunkhouse the first time he came by...I think he knew I was living there."

"Maybe, but the bunkhouse was dark when I rode out, Lou. Main house wasn't. Thank God for it," he added.

He could see her trying to fight it, to deny it. He climbed to his feet and crossed his arms, watching her struggle with the possibility someone had tried to kill her.

He was mad enough to taste blood, his fingers itched to do violence to the Warners, or whoever was close by really, but he controlled himself while he waited to see what Lou wanted to do.

For one of the first times he could remember, she didn't seem able to decide. She was too shaken up, and physically exhausted as well. He noticed that she was favoring one hand.

"What's wrong with your hand, Lou? You hurt?"

She closed her fingers around her palm dismissively, but winced with the pain doing so caused her.

He walked to her and took the injured hand by her wrist, turning it over gently.

Though the fire had burned low, he could see the large, ugly blisters on her whole palm. He had the displeasure of having burned his fingers more often than not while he was on cooking duty during the express. He couldn't imagine how badly a burn of this size and seriousness must hurt, yet she hadn't said a word of complaint. It reminded him again of how tough she was.

"Come on, Lou. Let's get you inside and patched up. We can talk about what to do in the morning."

And she let him put an arm around her shoulders and she even leaned into him a bit as he steered her toward the bunkhouse.

* * *

Her head hurt and her burned hand was in agony as Jimmy urged her to sit down at the bunkhouse table before he went about lighting a few lanterns. He found the bowl of water she kept in a pitcher, poured it into the basin she used for washing her face, then brought it to the table and urged her to put her hand in it.

She hissed in pain when she did, but the cool water did help some after the initial shock.

"Emma taught me that," he said quietly when he saw her relax a little with the relief the water gave her.

She was afraid to take her eyes off of him, terrified she was going to wake up from a dream to find he was truly dead and gone, just like Kid. She welcomed the substantial discomfort of her burn only because she thought surely the pain it was causing couldn't be the product of any dream.

Because she was too nervous to blink, she saw his expression when he noticed that she had been sleeping on Kid's old bunk, saw the pity the realization brought to his face.

Her cheeks heated and, embarrassed, she finally looked away. She was thankful when after an awkward moment while he grappled with what to say, he moved on without comment. His face was still troubled a minute later when he murmured that he was going to fetch some clean water and horse bandages from the barn, and left her alone.

She blew out a shaky breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. She was somewhat surprised by her soul-crushed reaction when she thought him dead and by the utter joy that had lit her when she had looked up to see him in the flesh, crouching before her and apologizing for the damned house, as if that had even made it onto her list of concerns yet.

She felt the baby move and closed her eyes, thankful to feel the motion after the stressful night and physical labor of hauling the water. She placed her hand there, wondering if Jimmy was right and the Warners really wanted the place enough to kill her for it. She trusted Jimmy's instincts, knew that unlike Kid had been where she was concerned, he wasn't just being over-protective or over-reactive. If Jimmy was so sure the fire was intentional, then the theory deserved consideration.

Jimmy knocked and waited for her to call out permission before he came back in. He sat on the bench beside her and pulled her hand out of the water without a word, holding it lightly by the wrist again and laying it on the table.

She sat quietly as he tended the burn, cleaning it as gently as he could. She propped her head on her other hand, watching him from under heavy eyelids. His face was tense with concentration and the effort not to hurt her. It wasn't working. In fact, it hurt like seven hells, but she didn't let on, knowing it would just distress him.

"I think we should go into town tomorrow. Talk to the Marshal about this," she finally murmured sleepily. He nodded but didn't look up from bandaging her hand.

The room receded to a tiny slit of flickering light.

* * *

He knew that cleaning the burn had to hurt awfully, but she didn't move the entire time he worked on it.

When he finished bandaging the burn and glanced up at her, she had fallen fast asleep propped up on her good hand.

He smiled a little. She must have dropped off just a second after telling him that they would go to the law in the morning. She had said "we," instead of "I," and that made him hopeful that she might consider letting him in close enough to help her.

He studied her unguarded face for a long moment. It was the first chance he had to really look at her since before the war. It took a minute to reacquaint himself with the plains and curves and hollows. Her bones seemed finer now than he remembered, her eyes larger, her lips fuller. He wasn't sure if it was to do with her leanness or if she was just settling into maturity. Either way, she was more beautiful than he recalled, but the sadness stamped on her face had seemed to become part of her as much as her cheekbones. She'd had more than her share of pain in her life, but her sweet spirit, kind heart, and positive outlook had always won out. Now, he worried that she had just lost that part of herself in Virginia.

He'd tried to keep her in his mind after she left Rock Creek, but time had stolen the fine details from memory, leaving him with just the impression of her, like a blurry photograph.

He glanced at Kid's bunk...her bunk now, he corrected himself. The covers trailed across the floor halfway to the door, he guessed they had come part of the way with her when she bolted outside. Seeing the inside of the bunkhouse after so many years had hit him hard, but not as hard as seeing all the beds untouched but Kid's old one. His grief, and pain over her grief had almost got the best of him in that moment, and he'd had to get out of the house for a minute, using the excuse of getting a bandage.

He looked back at her. She was still covered in soot and ash and dirt. He said her name softly to rouse her, to see if she wanted to wash up, but she didn't even twitch.

Deciding she probably needed the rest more than the water, he stood and after a moment's hesitation, gently picked her up. She stirred but did not wake as he carried her to Kid's bunk and lay her easily on it.

He gathered the bedclothes from the floor and covered her to the chin. He couldn't resist touching her cheek ever so lightly before he turned to go. "Goodnight, Lou," he said softly.

She brought her hand to cover his, the lantern light glinting off her wedding ring.

"Come to bed soon, alright?" she murmured, still fast asleep.

His heart kicked when he realized she thought he was Kid. He didn't know what else to do in the face of that soft request but to respond in a low voice, "Alright, Lou, I will."

"I love you so much," she murmured and patted his hand again.

"I love you too, Lou," he said around the tightness in his throat and watched when a sweet smile crossed her face before she turned over, taking the covers with her. He stared at her for another long moment, grieving for her, grieving for Kid.

He left her there to her dreams of Kid, and took watch on the bunkhouse porch for what was left of the night.

* * *

A/N: Your reviews are so sweet and after years of academic writing and lots of rejection from reviewers who didn't like the method or survey style I used, or hell, the title, is more lovely than I can say to hear nice things. Every review means a lot to me, but to the one reviewer who said she (I am making an assumption it was a she) had to "shake off the effects of my writing" that is maybe one of the highest compliments I have ever received.


	9. A Time for Revelations

_A Time for Revelations_

He wasn't sure how she had done it with just the single bucket of water he had left in the bunkhouse, but when she emerged early the next morning, the ash and soot that had covered her was gone from her skin and hair. She was dressed in a crisp blue blouse and a black split skirt and boots, her hair gathered back at both sides, then spilling down her back. The faint smell of oranges reached his nose, a fresh and welcome distraction from the acrid, choking smoke that still hung over the station.

She looked weary, almost delicate. He had trouble imagining the days he had thought her a boy, wondered how he could have been so stupid, how all of them had been.

"You slept out here?" she asked upon seeing him stretched out in his old bedroll.

He shrugged, but didn't say anything else as she walked slowly to the edge of the porch and surveyed the pile of debris that had once been the big house. It was still smoking, but the fire had consumed everything it could and had been in death throes for hours.

She crossed her arms over herself; he'd noticed she did that often these days, a nervous gesture he didn't remember from the time before the war. Her shoulders rose and fell as she sighed heavily.

"It can be rebuilt," he reminded her again softly as he picked himself up and stretched. He groaned. He was still a young man by most estimations, but some days he could feel every spill he'd taken off a horse, every bullet that had ever struck him. This was one of those mornings.

She nodded, but he saw her apprehension in the tense line of her back. In a moment, she looked over her shoulder at him. "All your stuff was in the house?"

"Not all of it," he hedged. "Mostly clothes."

"I'll...I'll replace them," she said quietly.

"No you won't," he argued, hating that she spoke to him again like he was company, not family. He felt like he was losing the ground he had gained with her last night.

"Jimmy…"

"Lou, it's _fine_. It's clothes for God's sake. I'll buy some in town and I can have Teaspoon send me more of my old ones from Rock Creek." He changed the subject quickly, "You ready to go talk to the marshal?"

She nodded. "I need supplies too…"

"I'll wash up and hitch the wagon," he volunteered.

"You wash up. _I'll_ hitch the wagon," she countered and when she caught him rolling his eyes at her predictable insistence on doing everything herself, she smiled just a little bit.

She was sitting on the seat of the wagon in the yard when he emerged from the barn, as clean as he could make himself with no change of clothes. His heart beat a bit faster when he realized that she was waiting for him to sit beside her on the wagon seat. He figured she would have saddled one of them a horse.

It was ridiculous that he should feel nervous at the thought of sitting beside her, given that he'd slept in the same room with her for a year and a half, eaten hundreds of meals with her at his elbow, danced with her, fought beside her, walked her down the aisle to give her away at her wedding, for God's sake.

And there was the one time when he'd kissed her. But it was safer not to think of that, and as soon as he did, he felt guilty, remembering her sleepy profession of love for her husband as he'd left her last night.

He was surprised when she passed the reins to him when he climbed up beside her, then folded her good hand over the bandaged one in her lap.

It was a cool morning, hinting at the Autumn they had been impatiently awaiting, and the smoky air cleared as they put distance between them and the station.

There were a thousand things Jimmy wanted to ask her, but he wasn't so sure he had any right to do so. Finally, he cleared his throat and chanced one of the questions plaguing him, "Lou, where are your brother and sister?"

He felt her tense at the question, and he glanced at her. Her cheeks colored and she looked away from him, "I...I don't know…"

He asked gently, "What happened?"

"Kid and I...we stopped in St. Joe on our way East to visit them, to tell them we were heading to Virginia, to see if they wanted to come with us. Jeremiah...well he'd run from the orphanage same as me not too long after I saw him last. No one knew where he'd gone. I don't know if he is alive or dead...he just disappeared. I guess he gave up on me."

"Lou, you did the best you could."

"Did I?" she murmured bitterly. There was contempt in her voice, and he could tell it was all aimed at herself. She crossed her arms again and shifted uncomfortably.

"Yeah," he said with conviction. "For God's sake, you were a kid yourself, Lou. What about Teresa?"

"A family in St. Joe had taken her in...she was happy there," Lou said simply. "We were heading into a war zone. She didn't really even remember much about me, and she didn't know Kid at all. I didn't...I didn't push the matter. Maybe I should have..."

"You ain't gotta explain yourself to me," Jimmy said, and meant it to the bottom of his heart. "I know it hurt you to lose them."

Lou swallowed hard and nodded, "Jeremiah never forgave me for leaving the orphanage without them, and Teresa...well, I don't think she could forgive me for not coming back for her sooner. She didn't answer my letters after I saw her last. At least I think she didn't-mail was terrible in Virginia once the war got underway. When I tried to see her on my way back West, the family that took her in had moved on...no one knew where. I don't know that I'll ever see either of them again. And so, I broke a promise I made to my Mama on her deathbed...and a promise I made to them both. I don't blame them for hating me. I really don't."

"Lou, I ain't so sure it was fair of you to have to make that promise." Jimmy sighed as he thought about Lou arriving in St. Joe, after having just lost her baby, only to find she'd lost her brother and sister also. She had risked her life to try and make a better life for them. It had been her primary motivation for the danger she put herself in every day; and no matter how she had rejected the notion, it _had_ been more dangerous for her than any of them with the exception of maybe Noah.

He remembered how she had saved every penny she had. He had watched her fingers trail over things she admired in Tompkins' store from time to time, feminine things. She never treated herself to any of them that he'd seen. It had given him such pleasure to buy her that blue dress in Willow Springs over her strong protests, just because he knew she'd never have done it for herself. He wondered briefly if she still had it.

"You have to know that you sacrificed a lot to do right by them, Lou."

"But I _didn't_ do right by them, did I? I just...kept putting them off, got caught up in my new family," she broke off, and the awkward silence was back. He didn't think she felt that way about them any more. "Do you know…" she began in a moment, then hesitated as if she was afraid to ask. "Has there been word from Jesse?"

He stiffened at the mention of the boy. As much as the others had blamed Rosemary for Noah's death, he blamed Jesse. His feelings were a tangle where Jesse was concerned. He loved the boy, he hated the boy, and underneath it all was the feeling he had failed him in some fundamental way.

He shook his head and said quietly, "I guess I feel the same about Jesse as you do about your brother and sister. I could see the path he was set on traveling and I could never get through to him there was another way."

Lou shook her head. "I think Frank just had too much a hold on him. I ain't sure we could have ever gotten through. I know...I know what he cost all of us, but I mostly remember his sweet smile and him ducking out of reading the next chapter of whatever book Rachel assigned him and following me around like a big puppy...I just can't hate him."

"I know," Jimmy sighed. "It ain't in your nature to hate, Lou."

Lou went quiet with that comment. They rode quietly into Sweetwater, thinking of a boy they had both loved in spite of his faults, a boy they had lost.

"It's the first time I been back to Sweetwater," Lou volunteered quietly.

Jimmy glanced at her in surprise, wondering where she was getting her supplies if not Sweetwater, but didn't ask. He sighed. "Well, it ain't changed much that I can tell. Tompkins is back here."

"Wouldn't have been surprised if he'd turned up in Virginia, operating a mercantile," Lou said, shaking her head and smiling when Jimmy laughed. "I caint decide if he is following me or me him." Her face grew somber. "I heard he was back here. I hadn't been by because…" she trailed off without finishing the thought, but he knew it was to avoid questions about Kid. She continued, "been buying supplies at Vanner Gap."

Jimmy nodded, set his teeth against the questions she didn't want to answer so bad she'd go thirty miles further than necessary for supplies.

Teaspoon was making inquiries about Kid, which made Jimmy feel a little guilty, though his need to know what happened to Kid triumphed over his squeamishness about going behind Lou's back. Still, given they had no idea where in Virginia they had lived, nor Kid's regiment, nor what name he had enlisted under, nor even _when_ he had died, chances of finding details of one death in half a million were slim.

They drove past the saloon and Jimmy felt his palms go a little slick on the reins when he saw Nellie leaning against a porch post. She was giving Lou a hard once-over, her brows drawn in a stormy line. Jimmy hadn't ever mentioned Lou in his visits, not because he was trying to mislead Nellie, but simply because Lou was none of her business.

Nellie met his eyes with something like betrayal in hers, and he realized that she did not see it that way at all, probably thought Lou was a wife he never mentioned. He held his breath, praying she wasn't going to make a scene, all the while wondering why he felt so damn guilty for both of them when he had nothing to apologize to either of them about. When Nellie pushed off the post and stomped inside, he felt nothing as strong as his relief.

"You can breathe now," Lou said dryly as soon as Nellie was gone from sight.

He felt like his collar was too tight suddenly, and felt himself blush the second time in as many days. He met her eyes, horrified that she'd noticed the exchange.

"Don't worry. I didn't expect you had become a priest, Jimmy," she laughed.

He prayed the Lord might just take him on the spot and spare him this embarrassment. He slapped the reins over the horse's back and picked up their pace towards the Marshal's office. He still couldn't look her square in the eye when he hopped down from the wagon and held a hand up to help her down as well.

She was still chuckling at his discomfort when they entered the office.

* * *

Maybe it was the familiar surroundings and the memories of Sam Cain, Teaspoon and Barnett's straightforward and fair peacekeeping that made her hopeful as she walked in the office. It looked exactly as she remembered it. She half-expected Teaspoon to be there, snoring with his feet up on his desk, hat tipped over his eyes. The memory of him there like that a hundred times made her ache for the man that had been more father to her than the one of her blood. _Once_ , she reminded herself firmly, _a lifetime ago._

The new marshal was behind Teaspoon's desk. He did not get up when they entered, and in fact he did not even look up from whatever he was writing.

She glanced at Jimmy who raised his eyebrow in return. "Marshal?" she finally said in a quiet voice when it was clear that their mere presence did not merit him stopping his task.

The man at the desk raised his gaze in annoyance, but then sharpened on her with sudden interest. He was a broad-shouldered, stocky man, probably five or so years her senior. He had a thick mustache that drooped over his mouth, giving him a perpetual frown. His eyes passed over her with appraising interest, sweeping boldly up her body.

His stare paused on her breasts for a long moment, a leering smile stretching his lips as he made no attempt to hide the fact he was doing so. She felt her cheeks burn and crossed her arms across herself self-consciously. She knew her blouse was more tightly fitted than she was comfortable with, had a feeling her nervousness and the crisp air might have made parts of herself visible beneath her undergarments. She'd been wearing her men's clothes around the station, had not thought about buying anything else to wear since arriving. It had come as a surprise to her this morning that pregnancy had changed her body enough to make buttoning every shirt she had tried on difficult.

She felt the fury radiating from Jimmy, knew that he had noticed what was happening and that he wouldn't tolerate it very long. She gave him a warning glance before turning back to the Marshal, who finally bothered to look her in the eye.

"I need to make a report of damage," she said, lifting her chin although her skin wanted to crawl into chills and she would have preferred to step behind Jimmy.

He watched her for another long minute, a lazy smile working across his features. It did nothing to put her at ease. "You don't look damaged at all to me, Honey. Come closer and I will have a better look though."

"I think someone burned down my house last night," she ground out through clenched teeth.

"My, my. That's a mighty serious accusation you are making there. Why don't you slow down a bit? I don't believe we've met."

"I'm Louise McCloud. I am the owner of the old pony express station and last night someone burned part of it to the ground!"

"The widow," the Marshal suddenly said with a wide smile, nodding as if in confirmation to himself. "I got to say, the way they been talking about you, I expected a woman who looked like a nag been rode too hard. You're a pleasant surprise, Sugar."

"Who are _they_?" Lou growled, then shook her head, because she figured she knew. "Nevermind. Last night, the main house at my ranch was burned down. I heard horses running off just after the fire started. We found fresh tracks leading away from my property towards the Bar W this morning...both Silas Warner and his son have been on my property uninvited, and both have made no secret they want me off of it."

"Did you see anyone?" the Marshal asked, eyes darting between Jimmy and Lou speculatively.

"No…"

"Well, this _is_ the wild west, Sugar. There's lots of horses around these parts. If you're gonna squeak at every little noise way out in the country by yourself, you ought to settle in town."

"Silas Warner and his son have both threatened her," Jimmy interjected. "I heard it with my own ears. They want her land."

"And they have offered fair market value and then some, from what I hear. That hardly sounds like a criminal act, son," the Marshal laughed. "Now, what proof do you have to offer that this was anything but a candle left burning, or a spark on the wind?"

"There wasn't any wind last night," Jimmy growled.

Lou added, "the house went up in flames like a torch...I think there is no way that a fire like that just started on it's own."

"Excuse me, ma'am, but that house was made out of wood, right?"

"Yes, but…"

His condescending tone infuriated her. "Honey, wood _burns_. It's been a hot summer. It sounds to me like you spooked yourself is all. Sounds to me like you shoulda sold the land before the house burned. Probably ain't worth as much now...I would get out while I was ahead."

Before she could respond, Jimmy observed coolly, "Marshal, we didn't catch your name."

He smiled, an ugly light in his eyes when he said, "My name is Benjamin Warner."

"Of course it is," Jimmy muttered. "Silas Warner your father?"

"Uncle. Jacob is my cousin, but he's more like a brother to me. And I gotta tell you something, Mrs. McCloud. You hold a gun on him again and you'll keep me company here for a few nights...until I teach you some manners."

Lou growled, "I got the right to defend my property and myself. And I'll do it the way I see fit!"

He finally stood, coming around the desk. "I don't like your tone much, Mrs. McCloud. You just better shut your pretty mouth un-"

"Don't you talk to her like that!" Jimmy growled, surging forward.

Lou saw the Marshal's hand go to his gun and she reached out to grab a hard hold of Jimmy's arm. It was rigid beneath her fingers, his eyes were locked on the marshal's with bloodlust.

"Nice to know the law can be bought and paid for," Lou said, keeping a restraining hand on Jimmy. "But I can't be."

"That's not what I heard," the Marshal chuckled and when Jimmy started forward again, Lou hooked her hand hard on his elbow and dragged him back with all her might.

"I'm sure we'll be seeing each other, Mrs. McCloud," the Marshal called as she tugged Jimmy out of the office.

On the street, Jimmy shrugged violently from her hold and paced away in long strides. "Damn it!" he snarled when his back was to her. He took off his hat and jerked a hand through his hair.

Lou knew he had great respect for lawmen as a whole; knew that Teaspoon and Sam Cain were a lot of the reason for it, that they had shaped him into the good man he was. Seeing someone abuse the responsibility that he treated as something sacred infuriated him.

"So much for the law," Lou said quietly.

"I'll send word to Teaspoon and see what he can find out about what the hell is going on here," Jimmy said at last and cast a dark, meaningful look over his shoulder at the Marshal's office. "But yeah...so much for the law."

* * *

Like the sight of the marshal's office, even the smell of Tompkins' store the second she crossed the threshold transported her immediately back to her days on the express. She half-expected to hear Emma ordering them about like a supply-buying drill sergeant.

What wouldn't she give to go back?

"Well, look who it is. Two bad pennies. How you doing, Lou! Hickok!" She'd forgotten how wide the old man's rare smile was when he wasn't being a damned grouch, how his blue eyes could twinkle with good humor. "Heard y'all bought the Shannon place and I been mighty offended you ain't buying your feed from me after I danced with you at your wedding, young lady!"

She flinched at the ever difficult word "y'all," but despite her rotten mood after the run-in with the new marshal, Lou smiled with genuine pleasure to see the man she'd once gleefully hit with a cast iron skillet. She walked right into the arms he opened to her and she hugged him and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Good to see you, Mr. Tompkins. You ain't changed a bit."

"Can't say the same about you, young lady. I thought the day of your wedding that Kid was a lucky man, and I stand by it. Where is that husband of yours anyway?"

She'd been expecting the question, had prepared herself to answer it matter-of-factly, but the words suddenly caught in her throat and she struggled with getting them past the emotion there.

"Kid passed on," Jimmy murmured from behind her and Lou swallowed hard, thankful she didn't have to say it.

Tompkins' face fell and Lou had to look away from the sorrow and pity that replaced it. She was never sure quite what to say to ease another's discomfort and awkwardness when they inadvertently learned she was a tragic young widow. They never knew what to say, and she had no idea how to put them at ease, but trying was exhausting for her.

She braced herself for the inevitable question of what had happened to Kid, but in the reflection of a small mirror on the shelf behind the storekeeper's shoulder, she caught Jimmy shaking his head emphatically at Tompkins, who stopped his next question. After a moment's hesitation he murmured, "I'm so sorry, Lou. He was a fine young man."

She nodded, throat still thick, and Jimmy came to her rescue again by shifting the topic. "We're here for shopping today, but I was curious- don't suppose you had anyone in the last few days buy a big quantity of kerosene, or turpentine, or anything of the sort?"

Lou raised her eyebrows. It was a question worth asking, but she wouldn't have thought of it.

Not one to give away information for free, Tompkins' gaze sharpened. "Why do you want to know?"

"Emma's old house caught fire last night," Jimmy said in a guarded way, knowing Tompkins loved to gossip as much as he liked to make a profit. "Burned to the ground. Don't think it was an accident...I think they meant to do Lou here harm."

Tompkins considered for a long moment, his desire to be contrary apparently warring with his loyalty to her. "Listen, you both need to know that Sweetwater's a different town than it used to be…"

Jimmy snorted. "I noticed."

"All I'll say is that you better watch your back. And Lou's. I sold several barrels of kerosene day before yesterday...thought it was odd."

"To one of the Warners?" Jimmy pushed.

Tompkins obtained the look of a balking mule. "Look, I can't go giving away the business of my customers; I wouldn't tell no one what you came in buying either. Sides, I got my business to protect."

Lou met Jimmy's eyes when he threw her a knowing look. _This_ was the Tompkins they knew. "It's important, Tompkins. We need help proving what happened."

"Sorry Hickok, but I got my own neck to worry for now," Tompkins said and Lou walked away at that point. His reluctance to respond was answer enough as far as she was concerned, though she knew Jimmy wasn't done trying to convince him.

She wandered over to the canned foods and started to fill her basket. Her food had been kept in the kitchen in the big house; it was, or had been, more functional than the tiny bunkhouse kitchen.

She knew what it was to have an empty pantry, and the thought of it made her throat constrict and her heart beat faster in fear. She was surprised at the panic she felt settling over her at the realization that she had no food.

 _The war's done with, you coward,_ she scolded herself viciously.

Her mind rejected it and presented her instead with a vivid memory of her last Virginia winter. She'd had nothing to eat in days and days. So many days she couldn't think clear enough to count them. Merciless talons of hunger had raked the insides of her belly. The woods were picked clean of game, her stores gone, shelves in the town's store long-empty.

She'd killed the rat with a shovel. Had skinned and roasted it, teetering on the edge of a desperation she wasn't sure she could return from. She remembered the exact moment she'd made the decision to bite into the small, burnt body.

* * *

Jimmy's hand went straight to his gun at the sudden loud commotion behind him. He whirled and saw that the basket full of food Lou had been packing had crashed to the floor, cans rolling haphazardly in all directions. Lou slipped over several of them as she bolted for the door, hand over her mouth.

He and Tompkins both stood rooted for a moment watching after her, which was long enough for an older woman to stop in front of him and thrust a small bag of peppermint sticks into his hand.

He looked down at them in confusion, then back at the woman, at an utter loss.

She rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Give those to your poor wife. It'll help with the sickness. I should know, I had it beginning to end when I was carrying all five of mine. I'm guessing this is your first? Tell the poor thing it's worth it the second she holds that baby in her arms, although she probably won't believe it right this second."

"Baby," Jimmy heard himself say slowly, like he'd never heard the word before.

"Bet it's a girl. Sickness was always worse with my daughters. You better buy yourself a shotgun, Daddy. You two are a lovely couple. I bet you'll have beautiful children."

"Baby" he tried the foreign sounding word again, heart beating wildly, mind wheeling, an image of a broken, bleeding Lou twisting on a dusty floor coming to the forefront of his thoughts.

"You're as useless as my Ned," the woman growled and snatched the candy back, yelling at Tompkins over her shoulder to put it on her account. She marched out the door, presumably in search of Lou, leaving her young son, Tompkins, and Jimmy all staring open-mouthed after her.

* * *

A/N: Thank you again for sticking with me and the encouragement. I got a little stuck on this chapter...but maybe the next will come easier. "She," I'm totally stealing the idea for the Time to Rebuild chapter title-it's coming soon, but first, Jimmy and Lou have to have a conversation... And Tetonlady, I'm gonna make a Jimmy/Lou fan out of you yet.


	10. A Time for Questions

_A Time to Question_

He was the biggest idiot in the whole territory. Possibly the whole world.

There had been signs, in hindsight. Plenty of them. The sickness he had witnessed twice before. The curves he had admired that seemed out of place paired with her extreme leanness upon his arrival. The way her hand sometimes unconsciously strayed to rest just under her belly button as she stood still in the station yard and contemplated something. The way she'd turned pale when she smelled the onion he was cooking the other evening.

Even though he probably _should_ have known, he just... _hadn't_ , and he felt thunderstruck as he walked out of the store on stilted legs.

Lou was sitting around the corner, legs dangling off the raised boardwalk, head nearly between her knees. The woman who had gone after her armed with peppermint was sitting right beside her, rubbing her back in support or sympathy or as some sort of initiation into a secret pregnant ladies circle, for all he knew. The stranger was a pleasantly plump woman with an unruffled steadiness about her that suggested nothing worried her overmuch. He was sure as hell glad someone was holding it together.

He felt undeniable tenderness as he watched Lou sit up straighter and lift a trembly hand to her damp forehead, insisting she was fine. Ignoring her, the woman barked out an order and a teenaged girl leapt from a wagon tied in front of the store and rushed a canteen to her mother.

Lou helplessly obeyed as the woman ordered her to rinse her mouth. The woman then soaked her own kerchief and dabbed at Lou's temples with it, fussing over her in a way she wasn't accustomed to, but probably deserved more of. She reminded him of both Emma and Rachel somehow. Surely Lou needed another woman now?

Instead, she only had him, the ignorant fool that had left her alone to put out a blazing inferno while he put out his own fires with a whore. The fool that hadn't known she was carrying a baby the first time either; the fool, along with Kid and their damnable pride, that had cost her that baby.

He walked toward Lou, still unbalanced by the news and the bone-deep fear that was starting to grip him after learning it. She'd almost died before. What if it happened again?

The matron glanced up at his hesitant approach. Although there was some contempt for his incompetence flashing in the oddly beautiful eyes in her otherwise unremarkable face, she said brightly, "Look, Dear, there's your husband now!"

He noticed the jolt that went through Lou at those words, saw her head whip around with hope brimming in her eyes, hope that instantly dimmed when she met his stare. She shook her head a little and blinked, hiding her disappointment almost instantly.

Recovering her composure, she offered him a weak smile over the woman's head and didn't bother correcting her.

"Don't hold it against him too much, honey. Men are mighty willing to participate in the beginning of the process, but they just don't have the stomach for nothing that comes after it. Scares them not to be able to control it, to keep you safe. But don't you worry, that boy's got such tenderness in his eyes when he looks at you, he's gonna be just fine at the fatherin', once the messy part is over leastways. I'm Paula by the way. Live on a farm East of town. You send for me when it's your time if you need help. I'll bring Ned along to take your man and get him good and drunk till it's done."

With that, Paula patted Lou's cheek and then climbed to her feet. She surprised him by patting his cheek too, and smiling into his eyes as she paused before him. "Blessings to you both," she said warmly with approval that died quickly when he just stood there.

She rolled her eyes again as if she was at the very end of her patience with him. "For God's sake, go to her you fool. It's really the very least you can do."

And with that sage advice, she disappeared around the corner into the store.

He did as Paula commanded because it seemed unwise to cross her, walking to the edge of the porch and easing down beside Lou. She was looking straight ahead and he couldn't guess what she might be thinking. He sat at her side and looked out at the street too. He felt anything but quiet inside his skin, but he didn't say anything, didn't know what to say.

"So...I guess you know...now," Lou ventured at last.

He could just see her out of the corner of his eye. She was still looking ahead. He nodded, knowing he was in her peripheral vision too.

The silence stretched for another long moment and she finally muttered, "Well, say somethin'."

"You...knew?" he asked, then clarified, "Knew you were expecting?"

"Of course."

He thought of the physical labor she was doing, the way she'd battled the fire, the break-neck speed with which she'd ridden into the Bar W, and he felt angry with her at the chances she was taking.

Then something horrible occurred to him. What if she didn't want to be with child? What if the risks were on purpose in the hopes something might happen?

"You been working too hard," he finally managed, his voice sounding rougher than he had intended.

"That's all you got to say?" she snapped.

That pulled at the edges of his temper. "I got about ten thousand things I want to say, but I'm pretty sure you don't wanna hear any of 'em, Lou. And I'm afraid if I say the wrong thing, which seems a sure bet in this situation, you're gonna close down or run away again. I don't know where the lines are drawn now."

"I ain't likely to be running anywhere for the next little while so say what you gotta say," she growled.

"How far along?"

"About four months," she said impatiently. "Ask, Jimmy. Ask the question."

" _Is it his_?" he blurted out, his voice hoarse with fear and a myriad of other emotions, one of them being regret for asking the question in the first place.

He glanced at her, saw the pain twist her face like she'd been struck even though she had known it was what he would need to know. She didn't look at him, but he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes as she hesitated for just a moment.

Then, swallowing hard and clenching her jaw, she nodded.

Relief coursed through him, and his throat was too tight for words for a moment. Finally he chanced one more question.

"Did Kid...did he know?"

She shook her head no this time, and a tear escaped down her cheek.

That leveled him. He closed his eyes and fought with the injustice and cruelty of the knowledge that Kid, who'd been a good man who always tried so hard to do the right thing, was in the ground while he, with all his misdeeds and demons, was sitting here beside Lou instead.

"Goddamn it, but I don't know what to make of this world anymore," he said softly, then was somewhat surprised to realize he had spoken the thought aloud.

"You and me both, Jimmy," she agreed just as softly.

"Are you feeling...well?" he asked weakly though that seemed ridiculous to say after she'd just lost the contents of her stomach.

She half-snorted sardonically, then opened the bag of peppermint sticks and stuck one in her mouth. She glanced at him and he realized he'd been distracted by the way her lips wrapped around the candy. She held the bag out to him in invitation, and he pulled a peppermint stick out and turned his attention back to the street, heart beating fast.

For the next while, they sat silently side-by-side and ate their candy, the sweet, sharp peppermint rolling over their tongues, their legs swinging off the boardwalk like a couple of kids that were not facing some of the most bitter lessons the world had to offer up.

* * *

She knew that Jimmy was not yet done with what he wanted to say, but she was relieved that he didn't pull at those tenuous threads in the middle of town. They remained there on the porch for several minutes, and her sickness slowly abated.

She watched him pull his candy out of his mouth and examine the sharp point he'd made with his peppermint stick in satisfaction. Charmed, she grinned and pulled her peppermint from her lips, poking him in the back of the hand with the weapon she had made with her own. He glanced at her in surprise and then his face broke into an enormous smile.

Her heart thundered unexpectedly. It had been years since she'd seen him give over completely to a smile like that, his wide, generous mouth upturned, his even white teeth visible, his dark eyes flashing with humor.

She wondered, without warning, what it would be like to meet that mouth with hers, their tongues stinging with the hot mint.

Shame, quick and hot, flooded her, and she was shocked and shaken by the betrayal of her body's response to that errant and unexpected thought.

He noticed her withdrawal, she could read the confusion on his brow for the joyful moment lost.

"We still gotta get supplies," she mumbled, climbing quickly to her feet and pretending she didn't see the hand he offered her before he sprang up too.

"Why don't I take you home to rest and I'll come back for the supplies tomorrow?"

"No," she refused. "We don't have any food at the station."

"Well, I'll just run in and get enough to get by till tomorrow, then come an-"

"No!" she hissed emphatically, drawing a surprised glance from him and another man walking by.

"Lou," he said, his tone sounding just like Kid's when he had been trying to make her see what he perceived to be her unreasonable behavior. "You had a long night and you should-"

"I ain't leaving town till we have some food to put in the pantry and that is the end of it, James Hickok."

His eyebrows came up as she used his full name. Then shaking his head, he told her with a wry smile, "You're gonna do just fine at motherin'. Let's go get your damned food if you're so sure you'll starve to death withou-"

He stopped talking abruptly. She wasn't sure if he had seen a dark thought cross her face or if it just occurred to him belatedly why she was so anxious to be sure they had enough food. It was well-known that the South had been on its knees for the last half of the war.

Contrite, he met her eyes. "I'm sorry. Let's go make Tompkins' day."

She sighed in relief and followed him back in the store.

* * *

Lou glanced sideways at him as he drove back out of town. He was acting like a mother hen, refusing to let her lift a basket of food or bag of oats, insisting on helping her into the wagon when they were done shopping. He was as bad as Kid had been.

Then again, maybe he and Kid were right because clearly she hadn't been careful enough the first time.

She decided that he owed her an answer to a question, since she had answered his about her brother and sister, and since he had inadvertently found out about the baby.

"Jimmy...what happened with you and Rosemary? Are you still…?" She honestly wasn't even sure what to call what they were to each other.

The question took him by surprise and his hands jerked on the reins. She thought he might evade the question, but at last he shrugged. Keeping his eyes on the road, he told her. "We parted ways not too long after I saw you last."

"Oh," she said, and after a moment's hesitation added, "I'm sorry."

His mouth turned upward the smallest bit. "I know you didn't care for her, Lou."

Lou nodded to acknowledge that. "Maybe it wasn't fair of me, but I was afraid she was more interested in your reputation than your happiness, Jimmy. That's why I didn't care for her," she thought of Rosemary's dreary and doom-filled outlook and admitted, "well mostly for that."

"She was a hard woman to like sometimes. She had a hard go of it...she lost her husband and a child…" he broke off awkwardly and Lou guessed he realized, as did she with a start, the same could now be said for her.

"I guess her sadness just pulled at me. I wanted her to have some joy...she wasn't a bad woman...life just hadn't been very kind to her that I could see, and neither had Isaiah. I kept thinking if I cared for her enough, if I could make her smile, draw her out from that cloud she lived under, I could make her happy. But, turns out I couldn't no matter how hard I tried. I just brought her more sorrow in the end, cause I couldn't be who she wanted me to be." He broke off, clearly embarrassed and a little surprised at his long-winded monologue. "Like I said, we parted ways."

He looked so sad about it that she sighed and wished she'd punched Rosemary in the nose when she'd had the chance, for a lot of reasons but not the least of them for hurting Jimmy. Instead, she said, "It wasn't your fault, Jimmy. Remember what Teaspoon always says about savin' people that ain't got no intention of being saved."

"Yeah," he said but she heard the doubt in his voice. "Maybe I shoulda tried harder...but it was a hard time...for us all."

She hurt for him, admired his loyalty in defending a woman who didn't deserve it in her opinion. "Jimmy, you shouldn't have to be something you ain't for no one...and you can't make someone happy that don't want to be. My Pa...he was that way. I ain't sure what reward he found in being displeased with everyone and everything, but there musta been some pay off for it, the way he clung to his dissatisfaction."

"It's almost like old times, you know, you giving me advice on women," he said innocently enough, but the words hollowed her stomach.

 _Like old times._ Like when he had been her best friend, when she had loved him unquestionably, when she had known without doubt that he would never do a thing to hurt her, that he would always watch her back, even to his own detriment. That she and Kid were important to him.

And then she had lost the baby and he'd abandoned her.

 _Why?_ She wanted to know the answer so badly that the question almost forced itself past her lips, not for the first time. Instead, the words broke against her tightly clenched teeth. _Why didn't you come? How could you...all of you...but_ especially _you...walk away when I needed you more than I ever needed anyone? While I lay there grieving day after terrible day. While I waited for you to come lend your voice to Kid's assurances that it would all be all right. While Kid needed those assurances himself when I was too weak and eaten up to give 'em. Why couldn't you hold him up while he supported me? And then, no goodbyes. Not a word, not a note, not a breath. Why? Why? Why?_

She felt tears in her eyes as she swallowed the demands with difficulty. She didn't know why she was too much a coward to ask it out loud, but she thought it was most likely the truth that terrified her so much. She also knew that there was no way forward until she had it, however painful, however ugly.

She thought of the unopened letters and unread telegrams Jimmy had tentatively brought her from the others. She hadn't read them for fear of those same truths confronting her on the pages.

Maybe...maybe she should.

She felt like all her swallowed questions had burned a hole in her chest, and her shoulders slumped forward as they drove the rest of the way home in silence.

* * *

A/N: It does my heart good to make new friends and hear from old ones from back-in-the-day. That, along with my pure love for these strange cowboys and cowgirls makes this so worthwhile.


	11. A Time to Join

_A Time to Join_

 _Spotsylvania Virginia, August 1862_

"You listen to me, you mealy-mouthed coyote. If you don't sit yourself back down on that bed, God as my witness, I'll shoot you in the other leg," Lou growled at the pale-faced boy now frozen in mid-air between his cot and the floor.

"But, Mrs. Lou, I just…" the boy whined.

"I don't care what you _just_. You get out of that bed, and you'll _just_ be limping on both legs, Soldier," she retorted and swung back to the dressing she was changing on another man's chest.

"You cain't tell me what to do, woman! I'm a Corporal in the Army of the Confederate States of America!" He protested indignantly.

"Too bad for you I don't recognize your government's authority, Corporal. Sit _down_."

There was chuckling all around as the boy abashedly lowered himself back to his cot.

"This is what we get for letting a Yankee woman care for us. Old Abe probably recruited her hisself, just to give us Hell," he muttered.

"I'll show you Hell if you bust your stitches again," Lou growled, but despite her annoyance, a threatening smile meant she had to press her lips together more tightly. The soldier she was caring for saw it, and gave her a wink.

He called to the Corporal, "Ain't no way anyone this pretty could be a damn Yankee, Son."

"Sure, she looks pretty enough to be one of ours, but ain't no Southern woman that would let a hero such as myself die from thirst, I'll tell you that."

The older man with the chest wound chuckled, though it must have caused him some pain. "He's got ya there, ma'am."

"Keep your britches on and I'll get you some water in just a minute," she added, with a roll of her eyes for both men.

"Too hot for britches," the young Corporal sassed.

She bit her cheek to keep a stern expression in place, and bent to finish her task with the dressing, trying her best to be gentle.

She finished and stood, fighting a wave of dizziness and wiping her brow with a clean spot on her wrist. It was sweltering hot, had been for months, and the confines of the makeshift hospital just intensified the heat and misery. Streams of sweat rolled down her back beneath her cotton dress, tickled a path between her breasts.

The men, already injured and uncomfortable at best, lay on narrow cots jammed close together in a sheen of perspiration day and night, swatting at flies, desperate for any hint of breeze or fresh air. A touch of a cool cloth on their brows was worth more to most of them at the moment than a sack of Confederate greenbacks.

It was just past sundown, so she went to throw open the windows in the room. The air outside was already a little cooler without the blazing sun and she heard the collective sigh of relief from the soldiers. She could still smell gunsmoke on the air.

The Second Battle at Bull Run had been fought days ago. They said the South had won, but after spending every moment since up to her elbows in blood, she couldn't even imagine what losing looked like.

She had been at the hospital for three days straight. She had eaten little and slept less. Still, even given the fact these boys wore gray rather than the blue of her own heart, she was glad to do what she could ease them and glad to stay busy.

She had surprised both the doctors and herself with her aptitude for nursing and healing since her early days in Virginia. While many of the women from the area volunteered at the hospital, few of them had the stomach or the strength required to treat boys shipped in from the battles or nearby field camps; rampant sickness made the latter more deadly than the fighting.

Her days in the pony express, watching the boys come home regularly with bullets in them, and even patching them up herself on occasion, had prepared her better than most men for keeping her wits about her in the aftermath of battle. The doctors trusted her, came to count on her and really listen when she went to them about one of her charges.

It felt important, what she was doing now, just as riding for the express had. It was a different sort of work, less dangerous and less physical, but every bit as demanding and wearying, with an often higher price on her heart.

She wasn't happy...in fact, she was brokenhearted when one of her charges died-and they often did. She had few friends, and she didn't attribute it just to the fact that she felt free to make it clear The Glorious Cause was her husband's choice, not hers. She realized early on that having lived so long among men, and as a man, she was ill-prepared for the complex workings of society's circles, especially when the rules were made by women. She missed those friends she had left behind keenly, more so because the parting had felt so final, and was constantly mad with worry for Kid. Yet in spite of all that, she _was_ fulfilled and that had surprised her.

And, thank God, the work distracted from her own memories and worries, most of the time.

Jeb Stuart's cavalry had been involved in a raid against General Pope during the battle. Kid loved the man he served under, as did the whole South, it seemed. Stuart was gallant, inventive, and fearless by all accounts. It made for lively stories, but Lou would much rather her husband serve under a cautious man, a methodical one. Stuart was a lot of things, but careful wasn't one of them.

Knowing Kid was near, with Manassas being just a few miles up the road, she was troubled he'd not been to see her, nor sent word he was well in the aftermath. She was cross because of her anxiousness, but she realized she ought not bite off the poor soldier's head. She went to get water for the Corporal as a peace offering.

He was probably the same age as the boys had been signing on for the express, but he seemed much younger to Lou. He reminded her of Cody, both in looks and demeanor, which made him a fast favorite of hers. His leg had been shot twice during the fighting. He had come in screaming his head off and sobbing, not out of pain but because he didn't want to lose the leg. The surgeons had tried-despite their reputation among soldiers as sawbones they usually did _try_ -to save his leg, and they had, but the boy had been feverish off and on. Lou was worried where his stitches had reopened and then been closed again might go putrid. If that happened, the boy would be lucky to lose just his leg.

She'd been watching him like a hawk for signs that the wound had turned, but so far he was holding his own.

She eased down on the cot at his good side with a groan of relief to ease the pressure from the balls of her sore feet and lower back, and she passed him the metal cup. The water inside wasn't much cooler than the air around them, but he drank it thirstily and handed her the cup back, nearly empty.

He studied her intently, and she raised her eyebrows in question.

"You really been shot like you said yesterday?" he asked her skeptically. "Can't imagine anyone taking a shot at you, your talent for torturin' me aside..."

"Twice," she nodded, grinning. "Except I spread mine out instead of getting them out of the way all at once like you did."

She'd sat up late with the Corporal last night, distracting him from his fear about his leg and whether or not the surgeons would take it after all. She had spun tales for him and a few other of the men too pained or scared to sleep. She'd told them, to their slack-jawed amazement, how she'd been a pony express rider. There seemed no harm in it now, and it had made the time pass more quickly for the wounded men as they peppered her with questions about "injuns," "desperados," "gunfighters," and most importantly the employees of "them fancy saloons."

"I don't think I believe a word of any of it," the Corporal asserted.

"You calling me a liar, Reb?"

"Swear it," he challenged. She suspected he was drawing out the argument to keep her there by his side, but she was glad to sit with him for a moment now that everyone in her care had been tended.

"I swear it on Robert E. Lee's life," she taunted them, her voice quivering in amusement. Several of the men crossed themselves superstitiously.

Her Corporal rolled his eyes, clearly feeling she'd been pulling his leg.

"All right, you faithless man." Shifting slightly, she drew the sleeve of her dress high enough to show him the coin-sized scar on her upper arm that had been a souvenir of the trip where Kid had proposed. "Satisfied?"

The corporal's eyes about popped out of his head.

"By God...are you telling me all that nonsense about you riding for the express wasn't a ridiculous bedtime story? I'll be damned. It was... _true_?"

She shrugged modestly.

He shook his head and disagreed again, "nah, can't be. There's no man in the world dumb enough to think you are a boy."

She laughed outright, thinking how wrong he was about that.

"Actually, Corporal, at one point there were _seven_ of us dumb enough that we thought she was a boy...but I _was_ first to guess she was a woman…which is probably why I got to marry her..."

At his voice, Lou stood and spun so fast that she spilled the water left in the cup on her skirts. Tears blurred her sight of him, standing at the foot of the bed, tall and handsome in his gray and gold uniform and plumed hat, which he swept off. The metal rang loudly against the floor when the cup slipped from her fingers.

"Thank God!" she breathed and catapulted herself into Kid's arms, taking his cheeks between her hands and kissing him thoroughly as the surprisingly robust cheers of the weak and injured men around her rang in her ears.

The blood soon beating in her head drowned out the hoots and hollers from her patients as Kid shifted her in his arms. Not worried a bit about their audience, or perhaps encouraged by it, Kid dipped her back and deepened the kiss until she was dizzy and a little desperate for things that would require more privacy.

He set her back on her feet carefully, holding her a moment longer when her knees faltered, and she looked up at blue eyes flashing with mischief and desire as she heard the cheering of the men again. She was speechless with relief that he was unscathed and the need to keep touching him to be certain of it.

"Well, damn. If I had known kissing her would strike her mute, I'd have tried that yesterday while she was nagging me about eating the slop they passed off as dinner!" Another of her charges ventured. "No offense intended, Captain."

"If I were you, I'd be glad she was only nagging instead of shooting," Kid grinned at the man.

"Captain...you do know she's a damn Yankee right? Can't you talk any sense into her? Don't she gotta obey you or honor you or something as your wife?" the Corporal ventured and grinned at Lou when she shot him a narrowed-eye glare.

Kis snorted, and with his eyes meeting hers, told the men, "She would have choked on the word 'obey' or been struck with lightning for lying in church, so much to my regret we left that part out. And she figures she honored me enough by agreeing to hitch herself to me in the first place. I'm just glad she ain't got it in her mind to join up. She'd be riding up to the front of the Army of the Potomac tellin' McClellan, 'listen up little Mac, this is how we are taking Richmond,' and that'd be the end of it for the lot of us."

There were gales of good-natured laughter at her expense. Lou, happy to have them distracted from their misery, asked, "Kid, you know these men are unarmed and can't offer you protection, right?"

Kid widened his eyes in mock-fear, and again there was laughter in a room filled with men who were were scared, hurt, and homesick. She loved him more, if that was possible, for lightening their spirits so.

"Captain, you're with General Jeb, right? Can you tell us about how the battle turned out?" one of the men asked.

Obliging, Kid proceeded to tell them about the battle most of them had seen started but not finished. Lou half-listened as she moved among the men, refilling water cups, straightening bandages, examining them for signs of pain they were too stubborn to mention.

She admired her husband's self-deprecating humor as he told the men about the battle as he had seen it. Much as she hated what he fought for and the danger of it, she grudgingly admitted the military had been good for him. His superiors had quickly recognized his intelligence, decisiveness, and courage and he had risen quickly, obtaining a non-commissioned rank of Captain.

Kid had always been quiet and reserved, but he was a natural leader and the role had drawn him out some.

She watched him gently tease the men in her charge, making them laugh and feel better about their terrible circumstances. He assured them that they had already whooped the Yankees by the time he had gotten there, and that they hadn't missed much.

Her heart swelled with pride and love for the man he had become in the last year, and she was almost surprised she didn't just explode with both feelings.

"Y'all leave the Captain alone and let him take that pretty wife home, now, you hear me? You think either one of them wanna be standing here with us jawin'?" An older man finally said, and Lou felt her face go hot all the way to the top of her forehead.

Kid grinned and told the man, "From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for that, Sir. There's no finer company in the world than my Virginian comrades... _except_ her." He paused and grinned at her, and the air charged between them, as the men laughed again. "Lou, I told the doctor I'd come to fetch you. He said he'd send someone else along to keep an eye on your charges."

"I just need to-" Lou began, glancing around to see what else needed tending to, but before she settled on anything, her young Corporal reached up and gently grabbed her wrist, stilling her.

" _Go_ ," he said softly, and he suddenly seemed years older than her. "You took good care of us, Lou. Now go let him take care of you!"

She wasn't sure why, but his generosity almost moved her to tears, and impulsively, she leaned down and kissed him on his cheek, surreptitiously feeling for fever as she did though that had not been her motivation. She was thankful that his cheek, and forehead when she placed a light touch there, were not overly warm, even given the heat in the room.

"You'll stay in bed?" she made him promise.

"Swear it. Go home, I'm tired of you nagging me, Yank." His lips twitched into a smile.

She smiled back into his eyes, then glanced around, touched at these men's goodness.

Amidst cries from all around for her to get out, she took Kid's hand and let him lead her through the maze of beds.

Just before she left the room, she turned and met the Corporal's eyes, his young face eagerly watching her go. She blew him a kiss over her shoulder and laughed softly when he pretended to catch it and slip it into his pocket.

* * *

The early evening air seemed a hundred degrees cooler than the hospital, and she sighed in relief and filled her lungs with it as Kid hitched Katy to the back of her buckboard and started toward their home.

She hadn't seen him in months; the cavalry had been down trying to thwart the Union's march on Richmond. They had recently fallen back, but Richmond still stood. She let her eyes have their fill.

She noticed Kid's heightened wariness as he drove them home in the deepening twilight. She was not a woman easily scared, but she never would have attempted the six mile drive except in full daylight.

Not these days.

The war had produced something much worse than any man she had ever faced on the trail. After every battle, men from both sides decided they'd had enough. On the run from increasingly harsh punishment from their own side as well as imprisonment from the opposition, deserters terrorized women and men alike in the wake of both armies. They had nothing left to lose in most cases, and desperate men were the most dangerous men. When they joined with other deserters, they were like vicious packs of wolves and stories passed from mouth to mouth about them were full of horror.

She sighed in relief and felt her shoulders relax for the first time when Kid turned off the main road on a nearly hidden path through the heavy trees. She had flat-out refused to live in town, and Kid had not wanted her in a vulnerable house surrounded by fields an army was likely to pick clean on its way through. They had compromised when they had found a small cabin hidden in a heavily wooded area not too far from town, but unlikely to be stumbled upon. She stayed in town at the hospital when there was fighting near and kept herself armed when she was at the house. In the year she'd lived there, she'd not seen a soul come down the drive other than Kid.

He stopped the wagon outside the little shed she used as a barn. Kid's touch seemed to burn through her dress as his big hands encircled her waist and he lifted her slowly from the wagon, sliding her down against him. Her heart was somewhere high in her throat. At their closeness, she suddenly was very aware that she had been covered in sweat and blood for days with nothing but an occasional sponging off.

She could tell he had cleaned up before he had come to her. She pulled back reluctantly. "Kid, I need to wash-up…"

"You think that matters to me?" he whispered, leaning his forehead against hers.

"It matters to me," she returned, feeling shy, and smiled when he bit back a groan.

"Hurry," he growled and before letting her go, he took her mouth possessively. He broke the kiss with a ragged breath and insisted, "Go. Fast. I need you, Lou."

The kiss and those urgent words pierced her lower belly like lightning and turned her knees to water. She hurried to the house and retrieved her things while Kid took care of the animals.

There was a spring fed pond behind the barn, and in the warmer months she didn't bother lugging water from pump to cauldron to tub unless she needed to soak sore muscles. She sure wouldn't take the time now.

The pond held the heat of the day, and the mist rising from it caught the light of the nearly full moon in an ethereal glow. As she waded in, the water felt both silky and substantial, like liquid silver.

She lathered herself head to toe with the orange blossom soap that she knew was his particular favorite, plunged into the deeper water to rinse her hair free and swam back toward the bank.

Her toes found the silt at the bottom of the pond. The air outside was actually much cooler than the water had been, and her skin drew into chills as the night breeze rolled over her. After the hellish heat of the last days, it was heavenly, and she paused to roll her tired neck on her shoulders, and brought her arms above her head to stretch towards the stars above, arching her back and moaning at the protest of the muscles she had ignored for the last long days.

The realization she wasn't alone dawned slowly and her heart leapt a little when she saw Kid standing not far from the bank, eyes riveted on her. The moonlight bathed his face in silver, washing all other color from his features but the liquid cobalt of his eyes.

The air seemed heavy with expectation and she froze under the strength of the desire she saw in his eyes. The night seemed to go still and quiet as she stood under his stare, the water slapping gently against her hips. She lowered her arms slowly, her fingertips just gliding at the surface of the mercurial water as her eyes held his for a long moment.

He broke the stillness all around and his sudden lurch forward startled night birds from the low limbs around the pond. She felt like one of those birds was caged in her chest, wings beating frantically where her heart should have been. As he rushed her, clad in just his boots and uniform trousers, the intensity in his expression and the purpose in his long stride made her inadvertently take a step backwards.

He paused when he saw her draw back, the water just rippling over the toes of his boots. He met her eyes for a moment while she steadied herself, but there was no apology for the fire still in his eyes when he resumed his onslaught and plunged into the water, not stopping until he stood before her.

He slid both hands across her cheeks and then through her dripping hair, cradling the base of her skull as he leaned down to take her mouth.

And then, the world was falling away as he swept her up and carried her out of the pond and toward the house.

He didn't quite make it there, veering unexpectedly to where he had unhooked the wagon in the small clearing around the barn. He sat her on the bed of it and impatiently untied his bedroll and shook it out. Then he climbed in the wagon, and kneeled before her, bearing her back on the blanket.

His hands and mouth were like fire on her cool skin, and everywhere he touched and tasted, she burned, then ached for him as he moved to other places, intent on exploring each inch of her exquisitely sensitive skin. There was nothing measured or controlled about him this first time, he just simply consumed her, and she trembled like a leaf in a tornado, powerlessly swept into his center. When he took her, the heat of him was shocking and she gasped in surprise at the sensation.

The stars wheeled overhead in the purple sky and then exploded into a million points of light. The silver wind washed over her damp skin, and she wrapped herself around him and knew at this moment he was hers and she was his and they were both safe home.

* * *

The next evening, he had to leave her to report back to duty. The parting was becoming more bitter each time, and with her working in the hospital, there was no denying the danger and evils of this war, no use in Kid assuring her he would be safe. She glared at him when he tried.

She asked him to take her back to the hospital, unable to face the lonely house when he rode away, and knowing her charges still needed her care.

They held each other quietly for a long time, there in front of the old school that was now the hospital. They'd used their night and day together to say what they wanted to say, and now there were few words between them. She concentrated on the feel of his arms around her, on the beat of the heart beneath her cheek. It was a good heart; it was hers. Her own heart breaking, Lou urged him to go on so that he might come back faster.

"Ride safe," she murmured the ritual words almost superstitiously on the heavy air as she watched him, back straight and proud, ride away.

In low spirits and with dread weighing her belly, she let herself into the hospital, and made her way toward the room where her boys were. Their relentless teasing about her time with Kid might cheer her a little. Her cheeks burned just imagining the hell they would give her.

However, she stopped abruptly in the doorway and swayed against it when she noticed the young Corporal's bed was empty. One of her other men told her sadly what she had instantly known, while all the tears she hadn't shed in front of Kid rolled down her cheeks.

Her Corporal had died on the operating table that morning when they tried to take off his infected leg.

* * *

 _A/N: I liked the Corporal so much, I really fought myself giving him this end...but War takes both the good and the bad indiscriminately as near as I can tell...and this is where the story made me go._

 _Also, I was trying hard not to overstep the bounds of the T rating I have given this...but if anyone thinks it would be more appropriately M, let me know!_

 _Finally, thanks again, friends. Posting this in real time and weaving back and forth between the past and present means that eventually I may write myself into a corner, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it and I'll let you know if I need to go back and make an adjustment! This story is quickly becoming challenging, but very special to me._

 _A note for Oceanai-I was late to the TYR party too. I didn't find the series until 1992 or 1993, when it was already over. I first caught it in reruns on The Family Channel-which meant they took out all the really good stuff. I didn't see Kid and Lou's full Redfern Station encounter for YEARS after I started watching. The Young Riders was the first fan fiction I ever found also. I had internet access for the first time in 1997, but for years before that had written my own version of episodes...I honest to goodness thought I was the only_ _person in the world crazy enough to do that, and then I found Wendy's site (I can't remember what it was called...maybe just The Young Riders Fan Page?) and I was IN HEAVEN! I am still amazed at the body of work that fans have created for this show...I loved the acting, loved the characters (obviously) and loved the setting and premise, but I felt like the rotating writer's staff left lots of areas unexplored for us, which was kind of them, in hindsight, if the series could only air for three years!_


	12. A Time for Joy

_A Time for Joy_

"What the hell is that?" Lou asked around the peppermint stick clenched between her teeth, hands on hips, as she stepped out on the bunkhouse porch.

"What the hell is what?" Jimmy asked from the ranch yard.

" _Jimmy_ _Hickok_ ," she threatened.

"It's a dog," Jimmy said defensively, reaching down to pat the giant head that was as high as his hip.

"Mmm...if you say so." Lou continued, "I guess my actual question is _why_?"

"Well, cause that's how God made him."

"You are a funny, funny man," she said in a voice that sounded anything but amused.

"I know it. Some might say hilarious."

The dog whined and Jimmy looked down at him and explained in a voice intended for her ears, "Women are superficial creatures, Zeus. The sooner you learn that the better. I'm not gonna lie. You ain't got good looks. That's true enough, but we can't let that get us down. Some of us got to work harder for a lady's attention, that's all. We gotta prove our worth over and over again before they see our true value."

He thought Lou could probably see the back of her brain by rolling her eyes that far. "Jimmy, you ain't never had to work to get a lady's attention a day of your life with that pretty face and you know it."

"Damn it Lou, you're just gonna make him feel bad about himself if you keep pointing out how much more handsome I am."

Despite what he could tell was her absolute determination not to, a laugh got past her. She glared reproachfully at Jimmy and sat down on the bunkhouse porch, clicking her tongue once.

It was all the encouragement Zeus needed and he abandoned Jimmy's side and bounded to Lou joyfully, collapsing on his side and presenting his belly in wiggly anticipation.

"Jesus, Zeus you ain't got a shred of dignity, you know that?" Jimmy muttered as Lou rubbed the ecstatic dog's belly. "How are you supposed to claim your place as her respectable guard dog actin' a fool right in front of her?"

Lou giggled without restraint as she continued petting the dog. "Some killer..."

Jimmy sighed and crouched on the porch, scratching the dog too.

"You got me a guard dog?" she finally ventured and he looked up from the enormous mutt to find Lou studying him with an unreadable expression.

"Figure ain't nobody gonna sneak up on you day or night without Zeus here having something to say about it. And figure a body might hesitate or change his mind about causing trouble if he gets a look at him," Jimmy shrugged and was surprised when Lou's eyes filled with tears.

"Look, it ain't no big deal if you don't like him...I can find him another home," he said in dismay.

She sniffled, " _No_ , you fool. I like him very much!"

"Then why are you crying?" Jimmy asked, confused. The dog sat up and whined in concern.

"Because I'm _pregnant_ , damn it!" she growled as if that explained it, throwing her hands up and wiping her eyes.

"Oh," he said inadequately and tried not to make any sudden movements.

"Where did you get him?" she wondered when she brought herself under control.

"When I ran to town this morning to drop off my letter to Teaspoon about the Warners, I saw a man take a cane to him for no reason. Dog was just cowed down. Pitiful. I just...well, let's say that man now has twice as many canes, one less workin' eye for the next two to three days, and one less dog."

This time the tears actually escaped her eyes as she hugged the dog whose head was higher than hers as they sat side by side on the porch. Jimmy could feel the vibrations of the porch under his boots as the dog thumped his tail.

"Still pregnant?" he guessed this time about her outburst.

"Very," she sobbed, nodding.

And thus Zeus, who seemed some mix of wolfhound, shepard and possibly coyote, began his life as a ranch dog.

Later that day, she sat beside Jimmy on some hay bales in the barn as they ate the sandwiches he had made them both for lunch. She saw him sneak the dog the crust from his bread and cursed herself when the thought that she might cry again occurred to her.

Jimmy had not stopped trying to feed her since finding out that she was pregnant, or that she had a fear of running out of food, or some combination of those two things. His eyes were softer when he looked at her. Lou was pretty sure he was going to become unbearable quickly, but for now she would tolerate it.

It was actually nice that someone finally knew she was expecting and that he understood without her saying so that the stakes were extraordinarily high. He understood the pressure on her given this child would be all that was left of Kid in the world. She had been afraid that the knowledge of the pregnancy and her admission the baby was Kid's would loose a torrent of questions from Jimmy, but he had held his tongue thus far.

Zeus, after seeing Jimmy had nothing left of his lunch to share, had sprawled on his back with all four legs in the air. However, not much later, with no warning and speed that shocked Lou, the dog was suddenly up on his feet and barking madly as he ran out of the barn.

That deep-throated and powerful _woof_ that seemed to resonate in Lou's own chest made Jimmy glance over at Lou smugly before they exited the barn to see what had the dog riled up.

She crossed her arms and walked out half a step behind Jimmy, letting his broad shoulders shelter her as they watched the approaching buckboard.

"I'll be damned," Jimmy said and Lou heard the smile in his voice without seeing his face. He let out a piercing whistle and Zeus turned on a dime and came bounding back to them, growling under his breath as if offended he had not been allowed to demonstrate his worth by eating the trespassers.

Lou squinted into the sun and recognized Paula from the store yesterday. Beside her was a tall, skinny man that immediately was familiar to her.

"Is that…" she began.

"I think it is," Jimmy still was grinning as they walked out into the yard to greet their visitors.

"But I thought…" Lou began and then said, "Didn't she call him Ned?"

Jimmy nodded. "She's gotta have ten years on him!" he grinned, and the smile on his face grew wider and wider as the wagon pulled up to them.

"Mrs. Paula," he nodded pleasantly and then, "Barnett...that really you?"

"Hickok?" he said in disbelief, but that was nothing compared to the shock on his face when he looked at Lou. Though he had known she was a woman, or at least Lou thought he had, he had only ever seen her fully disguised. " _Lou_?"

"The same...or mostly the same," Lou smiled and shielded her eyes from the sun. "It's been a long time, Barnett."

Paula had watched this exchange with fascination. Finally she looked at Lou, nodded at the pile of charred wood that was the old house and said, "Oh, honey. We heard about your home after you'd ridden out of town yesterday afternoon. We came to see what we could do to help. But first, well, I guess you better invite us in that little cabin so you can all tell me how in the world you all know each other!"

It took a good half-hour to sort things out. Jimmy, Barnett, and Paula carried the weight of the conversation, and Lou's eyes shifted from one to the next to the next, surprised at how easy it seemed between them. Jimmy and Barnett explained how they had met through Sam and Teaspoon. Barnett told them that he'd quit as deputy several years back because he didn't see eye to eye with Marshal Warner. Jimmy took the opportunity to let them in on his suspicions of the Warners being behind firing the house, asked Barnett what he thought of that theory.

"The Marshal makes the devil look like a schoolboy," Paula had put in and remembering his leering face, Lou had felt her skin crawl again. "And his Uncle and Cousin are as bad, if not worse...the elder has some control, but those younger two... It was a terrible day for Sweetwater when they rolled into town. They been buying up land...under the guise of grazing but I think it's speculation about the railroad."

"Great," Jimmy muttered, and she felt his worried gaze on her.

"Barnett, I never knew you was married," Lou said shyly as talk shifted.

"I wasn't back then. Me and Paula only been married about three years now. We got two little boys, Jake and Hunter-that one is named after Teaspoon...Paula wouldn't let me name him Teaspoon if you can believe that. Paula has three girls pretty as her from her first marriage."

"I was widowed," Paula explained.

"Sorry to hear that," Jimmy murmured and Lou again felt as much as saw the sidelong glance at her out of concern. She wanted to tell him that she was strong enough to hear a word without falling to pieces, _damn it,_ but in fact her heart had thudded hard. _Widowed._

"Don't be. He was an ass and I ain't missed him a minute. He wasn't like my sweet Ned is," Paula smiled and the look they exchanged was so full of love that pain clawed along Lou's insides.

"Ned?" Jimmy asked, trying to change the subject for her sake, which she appreciated. She flushed as she caught his eye. He shifted a little at her look of gratitude. "How you get Ned out of Barnett Hamilton?"

Paula smiled. "You know how he mutters. The first time I asked him his given name he was about too shy to croak it out, so I just caught, and misheard, the last bit; I thought he said Ned. I guess it was about three weeks before he found the guts to set me right and by that time he was just Ned to me. Never thought you could fall in love with a body and not even know his proper name."

Lou smiled automatically in response to Paula's grin, but her emotions turned precarious; she'd been feeling tearful all day and wasn't sure whether to attribute it to the baby, or the house burning down. Paula, for the first time, seemed to notice too. "What's wrong honey? You seem a little sad. The house?"

She shrugged and nodded, "Yes, just worried about the house I guess."

"Don't. Your man and Ned can have it fixed up long before that baby comes along."

"Paula...there's something…" Lou began with a helpless glance at Jimmy.

"We aren't married, Paula. We're just friends...more like family I guess," Jimmy supplied for her and when Paula cast a fiery glare at him, Lou quickly came to his defense.

"I was widowed too, Paula. Jimmy isn't the father of the baby...he...my husband also was an express rider before the war...Jimmy just has come to help me with the place for awhile."

She raised her eyes hesitantly to Paula's, wondering what the woman would think of her, a pregnant widow living alone with another man. It surprised her that she wanted Paula to think well of her. Other women, aside from Charlotte, Rachel and Emma, had always been a mystery to her, and she was not accustomed to kindness from other members of her sex. She usually didn't mind it so much any more; she felt alien and awkward in the presence of other women, but there was something about Paula that was tough and steady and admirable and Lou realized she wanted this woman as a friend.

Paula didn't say anything for an uncomfortable moment, then with tears rising in her almost violet eyes she rose and slid beside Lou on the bench at the table. She put both arms around Lou and drew her close in a hug.

"You poor, brave girl. And me and my big mouth. Ned's always warning me to hold my tongue and stop making assumptions I ought not make...I feel just awful for gushing on about Ned and how glad I was my first husband was dead...though it _is_ God's truth...but I wouldn't have carried on so if I had known you were still nursing such a heartache. And to lose your man at such a time! You poor, sweet, darling girl."

"You couldn't have known," Lou said quietly, still held hard by the older woman.

"No, but that don't make me feel better about it." Paula sighed. She sat back a bit and Lou watched as she gave Jimmy a long, assessing stare. Jimmy fidgeted restlessly under her scrutiny. At length she murmured with approval, "I guess you're lucky to have such a good friend to help you."

"Yeah," Lou met Jimmy's eyes and smiled. "I am."

Jimmy decided that Paula could see straight into his soul after her appraisal of him during the conversation in the bunkhouse. Felt she knew every thought and secret he had, particularly in respect to Lou. He held his breath when he read the knowledge in her sharp eyes and felt nothing so much as relief when she opted to simply comment on his friendship with Lou. She then urged Barnett to get up so they could have a look at the burned house and see what they could do to help moving forward.

He and Barnett walked around the ruin, with Paula, Lou, and Zeus trailing along behind. There was not much in the way of salvageable material left. It would have to be cleared before they started anew. Barnett told him he'd come by tomorrow for a few hours to help him get started.

After he gave Paula a hand getting up on her wagon, she leaned down and patted his cheek with a wide smile. "Before I forget, you two, there's a social and dance in town on Saturday night. Might be a good way to reintroduce yourselves to Sweetwater, particularly if you are looking for someone to buy those horses you are planning on raising and training."

"That's a good idea, Paula," Jimmy acknowledged and glanced at Lou. "What do you say?"

"I...I don't know," she murmured, wiping her hands on her trouser legs as if they were suddenly dirty. Jimmy studied her closely, trying to pinpoint the cause of her reluctance.

"It might do you good to have a little fun, sweetheart," Paula insisted.

"It's just...it hasn't even been half a year since my husband died…"

Paula waited until Lou finally raised her gaze to hers before saying softly, "Louise, honey, I can tell by the fact a good woman like you grieves him that your husband was a good man who must have loved you very much. You think he'd resent you dancing a little, laughing a little? Just for one night?"

"No... _he_ wouldn't...but what would people in town say if they knew?"

"First of all, I ain't sure how they'd know, and even if they did, who the hell cares what they think?"

"It just...I...I don't know if I can do it. If I'd feel right."

"You show up, we'll see if maybe the fun follows, how about that? Worst thing that can happen is that you don't like it and your friend here brings you right back home. Best case, you kick up your heels a little, smile for a little while...you're just a girl, honey. It's right you should have some joy, even if it don't feel right to you now."

"Come on, Lou. You been working so hard...let's give it a shot." Jimmy urged her, throwing his lot in with Paula.

Lou shrugged at last. "All right."

She had tried to back out of going at least three times, but Jimmy wouldn't hear of it and kept telling her she was going, for at least a little while. Friday, she found a package propped up against the bunkhouse door. She glanced around but Jimmy was not in sight; he'd mentioned he was riding the fences this afternoon. She'd been keeping the horses in close since the fire, but they'd need more grazing soon.

Zeus, who was forever at her heels these days, followed her into the bunkhouse where she untied the ribbon on the large box. Inside the package was a beautiful blue-green taffeta gown with black piping details. The bodice was cut off the shoulders, the skirt full enough to require two petticoats. It was cut high under the bust, it looked forgiving though the waist; she'd been worried that any of her old dresses would be too tight on her with the ever, and quickly, growing curve of her belly.

She found a note under the dress.

 _Believe it or not, I used to be able to squeeze myself into this dress back when I was a girl in Georgia. Like Dixie itself, those days are gone for me. I took it in a bit in the shoulders and hem, and removed the hoop, but I believe you might find it fits you well enough. If not, send for me and I'll make alterations; I'm handy with a needle._

 _Your Jimmy came by our farm the other day to ask me for help buying a dress for you (he turned red up to the top of his head when he tried to explain to me he didn't know how to buy a dress to accommodate your changing figure which gave me a chuckle and I do admit to deviling him about it some...a boy that handsome blushing is about the sweetest thing I ever saw), but I just thought you'd be so lovely in this color, so I asked him to let me give you this one as a gift. I hope you won't mind a hand-me down, but it's such a lovely dress and it would make me so happy to know you were enjoying it. -Paula_

Bemused, Lou read the note several times, not sure how she felt about Paula and Jimmy's unholy union to get her to the damned dance. Still, it _was_ a beautiful dress...finer than even her wedding gown and she took a moment to wonder a little about Paula's past. She seemed salt of the earth, a simple woman and a farmer's wife, but a dress that fine spoke of less humble beginnings. Maybe someday Paula would tell her about it...but she wouldn't ask. She knew the pain of thinking of the past acutely now, if she didn't before, and it was not in her to be intrusive.

The next night she stood staring at herself in front of the mirror in the bunkhouse for a very long time. The dress fit her as well as any she had ever owned in her lifetime. The color was the deep mysterious turquoise that she'd seen in paintings of restless seas. She'd pulled the sides of her hair up and away from her face and secured it in back with one of the silver hair combs Kid had bought her when he bought her the brush in Richmond, before the blockades had gotten under way and such frivolous things could still be found in the South. The comb had spent the last three years buried in the ground along with anything else of value she had.

She still looked too thin, but maybe not so gaunt as she had the day Jimmy had arrived in Sweetwater and she'd met her wild stare in the mirror for the first time in months. She'd been out in the sun with the horses lately, so her skin had lost the terrible gray pallor she'd had after the long, brutal winter and spring in Virginia, and the time after she'd passed grieving inside her house without thought to the number of times the sun rose and set outside her drawn curtains. Now, her cheeks were pink, her lips fuller and redder, and her hair shone with better health than it had in the last years.

A tear unexpectedly rolled down her cheek. Here she was, healing, getting better, getting stronger, even though Kid never had, never would. These days she laughed sometimes, felt the satisfied weariness of a hard day's work, gloried in the feel of sleek horsehide beneath her fingertips, savored the flavor of just the right food she had a taste for.

And there with her always was Jimmy. She had caught herself contemplating his thoughtful care for her. And more damning than that, had caught herself studying the line of his jaw, the play of muscles in his forearms when he swung a hammer. It was the worst sort of betrayal of Kid, and she felt her stomach hollow with compounding guilt.

She was going to dance. Going to dance in a town where he had first asked her to dance, because it had hurt him to see her sad. She was going to dance across the dirt while he mouldered under it.

How did people do it? She wondered. How did other people just carry on with life when it seemed so unfair that they _had_ to...or maybe the unfairness was that they _got_ to and others didn't? She was a survivor. She didn't know how to do anything else but survive out of simple habit her whole life. At one point it had shocked her when she realized she would survive losing Kid even if she desperately didn't want to. She'd had no choice because of who she was at her center. Now she found herself wondering what would happen to her if she did _more_ than survive. What if she felt happiness again? What if her life was someday colored with joy and laughter and love? Was it possible? Could she feel those things the way she once had, and if she did, did it mean she hadn't felt enough for Kid, hadn't loved him enough?

And what if she dared to feel any of those things and it all came tumbling down around her?

Again.

She scrubbed her hands over her face for a minute, trying to erase the dark thoughts from her mind, then looked back at herself in the mirror again, appraising. Her gaze seemed harder than she was, tougher. There was something proud about her stare, something ruthless and determined, if a little sad. She'd been thinking of herself so long as a boy, then more recently as a girl, it surprised her very much to discover that sometime during the journey from Rock Creek to Virginia and back to Sweetwater, she'd acquired a woman's eyes.

Zeus, laying by the table, let out a low growl the second before there was a knock on the bunkhouse door. His tail began thumping when the knock was followed by Jimmy's voice. "You ready, Lou?"

She watched herself for another long moment in the mirror. "I don't know," she told her reflection quietly before turning to open the door.

A/N: Getting this chapter out was a little bit like trying to milk a rock, I decided about six slow-coming words in. But onward.


	13. A Time to Dance

_A Time to Dance_

He wasn't prepared for the sight of her when she opened the door, and so the effect on him was something akin to a bucket of icy water to the face.

The afternoon sun fell on the watery colored dress, and on her lovely face. Her eyes glowed nearly copper in the sunset light, her hair sparked a hundred different shades of auburn and gold and chocolate.

When he had burst into the church frantically on her wedding day, so scared he would miss doing what she had asked of him even though it would cost him something, the sight of her had stolen his breath. He hadn't been able to look away from her on that torturous walk down the aisle where every step meant he was getting irrevocably closer to losing a part of her he had no right to. Her face had been radiant with love, her eyes only for his best friend, if they could have still called each other that then, and he had forgotten about everything and everyone but her for just a moment.

In a moment of madness or panic, or both, he had wondered what would happen if he stopped her there, turned her toward him and said that he _didn't_ want to end up alone, he wanted to end up with her, but that he was terrified of the life it would bring down upon her. That he should have said so on a ride where she had tried to make him talk to her about what was and had long been between them, simmering below the surface.

He had missed his chance. His refusal to discuss it had, he thought, driven her the rest of the way back to Kid. She'd already had a foot in that direction. Her eyes had always been pulled to Kid first, moth to flame. And any fool could see that what was between them was real and honest and good, and hell, _fated_ if you listened to the others talk about the wedding as if there had been no question the way it all would turn out between Kid and Lou. But they hadn't known...not any of them, even Teaspoon who missed so little hadn't known, because Jimmy had been so determined not to feel it.

Had there ever been another possibility? Had he imagined the heat of that one kiss, overthought the way she had valued his opinion, they way she had hurt when he hurt, the way she fit against him dancing in the dust, the way she had curled into him after a long night of terror that had been his fault for walking down a street of a distant town, proud that she was on his arm?

These thoughts had flashed through his mind on her wedding day, as he kept a hand that wasn't quite steady over the one she had slipped over his arm, with a look of utter relief and joy to see him there to see her down the church aisle.

Tonight she stirred up those thoughts again, tonight she looked even more stunning than she had in white.

"Jimmy?" Lou murmured, looking self-conscious, and he thought it might not have been the first time she called his name.

He blinked. She was wearing Kid's wedding ring on a gold chain around her throat. The sun caught it and threw glittering spikes of light in all directions. He couldn't speak. If he did at this moment he would only be able to give voice to the thoughts that held him hostage and that would hurt her. She'd already been hurt enough for two lifetimes.

"It's ridiculous isn't it?" she worried, looking down. "I look like a poor orphan playing dress up in a fine lady's closet. And it's hardly decent me being a widow, and carrying a child, and wearing a gown like this. And the neckline is too low...it is probably all wrong. I don't know what I will tell Paula...but I can't go out dressed like this. Not in Sweetwater!"

He blinked again as she turned back toward the door with a sheen of tears in her eyes, her cheeks bright pink.

It was her embarrassment that snapped him out of his stupor. He lunged forward to grab her elbow, stopping her long enough to walk around her and block her way back inside.

"Lou, I...you look...I don't think I've ever seen you look finer. Please don't take the dress off. You look…" his throat felt tight suddenly as the thought occurred to him that whatever his feelings toward Lou, he wished Kid could see her right now. He couldn't think of a compliment that was big enough, so he gave her his true thoughts after all. "I wish Kid could see you. He'd know what to say...All I can seem to do is stare."

That surprised her, and her eyes grew brighter, but there was laughter in her words when she said, "Kid probably would have agreed it was too low-cut, said so in that disapproving way of his, and made me so mad I wouldn't take the damn thing off for three days out of spite."

Jimmy smiled at the truth of that and chuckled a little, the pain squeezing his chest like a vise loosened a bit with the laughter. "The fool did know how to get himself in trouble with you, didn't he?"

She nodded, her expression sombering. "I think he worried about me so much he forgot to worry for himself."

Jimmy wasn't sure what to say to that, and they stood awkwardly for a moment.

"You're wrong, you know," Jimmy ventured softly after a moment's hesitation. When Lou cocked an eyebrow, he explained, "He would have loved you in that dress, Lou. He always took such pride in you, no matter what, but he especially loved it when you didn't have to hide yourself."

"Really?" she murmured softly, even though he thought she recognized it as truth.

He nodded. "You'll save me a dance or two?"

She smiled tremulously. "I ain't sure I remember the steps, it's been so long."

"That's all right. I do."

* * *

Sweetwater was transformed. The area of Main Street between Tompkins' Store and the church had been blocked off to wagon and horse traffic by a ring of hay bales and benches. Paper lanterns were strung across the street, and they swung merrily in the cool twilight air. Tables laden with food lined one side of the enclosure while a group of musicians tuned their instruments on the other.

There was a good-sized crowd and more arriving. The area around the social was crowded with wagons and buckboards, and people in their finest milled about. Further down the street, the saloon's out of tune piano could be heard tinkling faintly along with roars of masculine laughter from time to time.

Lou let Jimmy help her down from the buckboard, not trusting herself not to end in an undignified tangle of skirts on the dust if she attempted it herself. Funny, there had been times she had wished and daydreamed about wearing just such a dress to these dances in Sweetwater. Now she felt inexplicably shy and vulnerable like she was revealing a secret that had been long kept from these people, most of whom would have absolutely no memory of a slight little boy named Lou who rode for Teaspoon all those years ago. And even had they remembered Lou, there was nothing to connect him in their minds to her. And nothing to be lost even if they did.

"I can hear you worrying," Jimmy said dryly, pulling her hand through the crook of his arm and picking up the pie she'd attempted to make in his other hand. "Stop it."

"What if the Warners try something at the station while we are here?"

"They won't. They are more than likely in town too."

"That doesn't make me feel much better."

As they made their way towards the crowd, she felt exposed, as if she wasn't wearing enough clothing. She could feel gazes pass over her, from both men and women, could feel the cool assessment from the latter.

"I feel like everyone's staring at me," she hissed to Jimmy. "I never should have worn this!"

"Of course everyone's looking at you. You're the prettiest woman here and that dress shows it off," Jimmy said and she rolled her eyes but he added with a sharper tone, "I ain't teasing you right now, Lou. It's the truth."

"I _told_ you!" Paula said by way of greeting, parting the crowd with Barnett, and two little boys trailing in her wake. "I knew that dress was meant for you!"

Lou was enfolded into a tight hug from Paula, and then greeted with an awkward kiss on the cheek from Barnett. She was introduced to their boys Jake and Hunter, both of whom looked to be around four years old and nearly identical. They gaped at her and asked their mother, "is she a real princess?" with such awe that Lou wished she could kiss both their little cheeks without sending them into fits of disgust.

"She's a real cowgirl," Paula told them and Lou blushed as she saw herself rise tremendously in their estimation.

Lou was glad to fly under Paula's wing as the evening got started. The woman knew everyone, and introduced her around to the other women. Between Paula's barrage of good-natured questions about each woman's children, most of whom she knew by name and age, and the lengthy responses, Lou wasn't forced to say much and for that she was grateful. The women watched her cautiously at first, but slowly warmed with concern as Paula told them about the fire at the ranch, and then with congratulations and advice when Paula revealed that Lou was expecting her first baby.

 _First child_ , Paula kept saying, another of her assumptions meant with the best intentions that drove a knife of pain through Lou's heart. She could feel her smile falter every time the introduction was repeated.

At last Paula delivered them back to a picnic table where Barnett and Jimmy sat talking amiably. In addition to Jake and Hunter, who raced madly around and around the table, Lou met Paula's daughters. Anne was 14 and had her mother's lovely near-purple eyes but darker hair, and the other two, Ruth who was 12 and Sally who was 10, were both blonde with dark eyes. They were lovely girls, more reserved than their mother, and Lou was glad she was not the only one being swept along helplessly in the gravitational pull of Paula's personality.

Jimmy grinned at her as they sat side by side down to dinner crammed among the Hamiltons. The younger Hamiltons forgot their shyness as the meal passed. Lou found her cheeks aching at one point and realized she'd been smiling with pleasure at the children's chatter for most of the meal and that those muscles of her face were out of practice.

The band began playing just as the stars slipped from their cover. An older boy awkwardly stumbled up to the table to ask Anne for a dance and Lou hid a smile in her napkin as his voice cracked with nervousness. Barnett and Hickok both stared such daggers at the poor boy that Lou kicked Jimmy in the ankle to get him to break the stare long enough for the young man to stutter the request out and Anne to go off beaming after a nod of permission from Paula. In another moment, a group of chattering girls came to claim the youngest girl, Sally who brought her brothers along. Paula dragged Barnett into the twirling crowd.

Lou watched the happy couples gliding gracefully and heard Elias Mills' gravelly voice float into her thoughts as it did from time to time, all these years later. _Can't remember when I watched people enjoyin' themselves._

 _Me neither,_ she responded to his ghost as the first song ended.

Jimmy's voice at her ear startled her. "You mind if I ask someone else for a dance?"

The little bursting bubble of contentment in her chest suggested she _did_ mind, and with the memory of the beautiful saloon girl that had glared so hotly at her a few days back sharp in her mind, she lied, "Course not."

She looked intently at the dancers in the other direction from him and felt her cheeks flush a little with either anger or embarrassment. She was glad when he stood and turned away. However, before she could stew too long, she heard his deep voice just behind her say gently, "Miss Ruth, may I have the pleasure of a dance?"

Lou turned in surprise and was just in time to see the young girl's face transform from sad longing to relief. As the girl nearly bolted from her seat in eagerness, Lou's eyes shifted to Jimmy. His ears were pink and she knew he made a studied effort not to look at her, instead focusing all his attention on Ruth.

What a man he was, she thought, to see what even she herself had not, so caught up in her own thoughts. At twelve, Ruth was at an age too old in her mind to galavant and play like her younger sister, but unlikely to find a partner among the group of boys also her age who were surely up to some mischief that couldn't be interrupted by _girls_. Lou was sure Ruth had been watching the couples, and particularly her lovely older sister, with her young heart aching to be twirled around by a handsome boy too.

Jimmy had known it, had sensed her hurt and taken steps to fix it. Lou had the luxury of studying him unnoticed as he led Ruth to the dance area and patiently taught her the steps, his smile encouraging.

He had told Lou how beautiful she looked a few times this evening, but Lou realized she was _really_ seeing him for the first time tonight, really seeing him for the first time in a long time. He was tall and broad in a dark gray suit that fit him well. She realized he would have had to buy it especially for tonight as all his clothes had burned in the fire. His favorite black hat was behind her on the table, so she could see his expression, gentle and open and delighted by the girl's wide-eyed joy.

Ruth looked up at him like he was solely responsible for all the good in the world.

Lou realized when her vision of them blurred a little with tears that she'd been looking at him the same way. She blinked them down, and kept watching, enchanted.

Paula's voice at her ear made her jump a mile. "She'll never forget that, you know. You never forget the first time a man asks you to dance...one that ain't your brother or Pa, I mean." Lou thought of a similar night with Kid, the music reaching them faintly as they stood behind the livery stable. She nodded in agreement.

"He is a treasure, that man," Paula added softly.

Lou hadn't noticed when her friend had come back to the table and sat down beside her. Lou glanced at Paula, felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment, as if she had been doing something she shouldn't.

Paula met her eyes steadily, then looked back to Jimmy and her daughter. "You can tell a lot about a man based on two things. How he treats an animal and how he treats a child. I don't know how that young man came by the reputation he has got, though Ned told me some of it...but he isn't what they say he is."

Lou wondered if Paula thought she didn't know that. Annoyance flared but she quelled it quickly. "I know," she said mildly, at length. " _He_ has trouble remembering that sometimes though."

Paula sighed, was quiet for a few seconds as she watched them dancing again. At last she ventured, "There's some history between you two...and it isn't all happy."

Lou felt herself sit straighter as if she was drawing herself up for battle. "He was my best friend...before the war."

"Was?" Paula asked.

"He hurt me pretty bad...and I guess I hurt him too."

"You haven't aired it out?"

Lou's voice was sharper than she meant it, "I can't."

Paula nodded, apparently knowing that further prying in that direction was not welcomed. "He's here now...that means something. And anyone with eyes can see he cares for you and you for him. That boy would jump in front of a train to keep you from harm."

"That's just him. Who he is. He ain't interested in me that way, even if…" she broke off abruptly, not even sure what she had meant to say. _Even if I wanted him to be?_ That was ridiculous. She had long ago rid herself of those thoughts about him. After all, he had made it clear on that ride with Elias that he didn't feel that way, despite what had happened by the fire, and then Kid had come back, risked his life for them. It had been natural to turn back to Kid, it had been easy even. She had sought his arms almost reflexively for comfort at the hanging because she knew he'd never withhold it from her.

"Oh, honey," Paula said, shaking her head in disagreement. She started to say more, but Barnett, standing nearby, cleared his throat abruptly, and Paula sighed and sat back, choosing not to complete the thought.

As the song ended and Jimmy led a beaming, nearly skipping Ruth back toward them, Paula said quietly, "Life is unpredictable, and it's hard on the good and bad alike. I know I ain't gotta tell you that, honey. Grab onto whatever happiness you can find. Losing it all again is a risk to you...I know that, but...without it, what's the point of any of it?"

Ruth was giddy enough to ask Jimmy to dance again, but Paula, to the girl's mortification, dragged her and Barnett off to get dessert, leaving Jimmy and Lou at the table.

Jimmy held out a hand, "Let's see if you remember those steps."

Lou took Paula's advice, and Jimmy's hand, and danced.

* * *

She'd forgotten what it was like. Not just the dancing, but the welcomed physical contact with another person.

His hand was pressed firmly against the small of her back, and she could feel the heat of his splayed fingers through the smooth material of the dress. His hold brought her close to him, so that the curve of her belly pressed against him just enough to make her heart catch a little in her throat. His other hand covered hers and he brought it to rest against his chest easily as the music began. His face was close, so close to hers. Had dancing always required such closeness? Had it ever set her to fighting for breath before?

His eyes were intent on hers, his expression serious. He was fiercely contemplating something she couldn't guess, but she could see thoughts flying behind his dark eyes. She couldn't look away from his face, felt pinned by the weight of his stare.

He was a better dancer than she remembered. She had danced with him twice before, once in Rock Creek at a social like this one, the other by themselves in a dusty street under a dark sky. She wondered if he remembered that trip to Willow Springs...and if he did, did he ever think of the lovely time he had showed her before Hopkins had ruined it all?

She didn't know. They had never spoken of that night...the good or the bad...again. Just as they had never spoken again of what had happened on the ride to deliver Elias to Ft. Kearney. Or of how she had risked her life to follow him to fight the Garretts, weeks before her wedding.

Maybe it shouldn't surprise her that they had yet to speak about the last night they'd seen each other before he had come back to Sweetwater.

As if he sensed her darkening thoughts, or more than likely read them on her transparent face, he suddenly whirled her around and around in the dust, just as he had in Willow Springs, answering her unspoken question, _do you remember too?_

As she had then, she lay her head on his shoulder as they twirled, giggling like Ruth had. His light laughter rumbled under her ear. She was slightly off-balance when he stopped spinning, but she knew he would not let her fall. They kept right on dancing as the song ended and the next picked up.

She forgot everyone but him. They might have been alone in Willow Springs again. She held his stare for minutes, or hours for all she knew, as he watched her with that same indiscernible and intense stare. His touch was sure, his arms both powerful and protective locked around her. Their bodies brushed closely, their breath mingled. Her eyes dropped to his lips for a moment. He leaned forward, and her head tipped back as she raised her face, putting her lips to his.

His lips moved against hers for the briefest moment, she could feel the restraint he held himself with in those short heartbeats, had long enough to wonder, what if he let it go?

Then, she heard his shocked intake of air as he froze and the effect on her was instantaneous. Shame and horror in equal parts washed through every vein, and she stumbled over the hem of her dress as she jerked back. She would have fallen if he had not caught her around the waist and pulled her back up, back to him.

"Lou," he said softly, gently, and it made her furious.

She pulled back, twisting hard and digging an elbow into his chest when he tried to hold on.

"Lou, damn it, just hold on," she heard him call in frustration as she turned and fled blindly into the crowd.

She had to get away. Not because of her embarrassment though there was plenty of that, but because she had been caught up enough to forget the husband she had buried as well as everything else that made what she had just done so damned unforgivable.

* * *

A/N: Well, real life in the form of the semester starting back up has interrupted my writing time a bit (how dare my students for deserving well-prepared lectures!). I am aiming for a chapter a week..or as close to that as possible. I hope you will stay with me...I have every intent to finish, and coming soon, more trouble and (happy?...we'll see) reunions!


	14. A Time for Propositions

A Time for Propositions

She was fast and she was small, and his blood was thundering in his ears, his wits slowed because he could still taste her. He lost sight of her in the heavy crowd, but started in the direction she had fled.

He nearly ran over the slight figure planted in his path, but stopped just short of knocking the woman down. He looked at her without recognition for a distracted moment, then continued searching over her shoulder for Lou. When she didn't move, he glanced in irritation to find Nellie from the saloon in a simple day dress much more modest than her get-up for work.

"Nell?" he murmured. "You look real nice."

"Dance with me?" she invited with a smile.

"I would, Nellie, but right now I gotta…"

"You didn't tell me about _her_ ," she said, suddenly shifting subjects, eyes flashing with anger at his rejection.

 _Cause she ain't your damned business_ , Jimmy almost said it out loud, frustrated in equal parts with her, Lou, and himself. He took a deep breath, pushed the air out through his nose and tried to find his control. "It not what you think…"

"It's not, is it? I heard talk you live with her, that you got her in the family way. You gonna marry her cause she has you trapped nice and neat? You sure she ain't pretending? Some girls do that, long enough to get the man down the aisle anyway. You want that baby to go away, I know something you could put in her tea…"

"Stop it!" he snarled, grabbing her upper arms and giving her a light shake. "You keep away from her, you hear me? She is my friend, and she has nothing to do with you," Jimmy snapped, worried that if Nellie was under the assumption Lou had taken him into her bed and was pregnant by him it was because others had said so in her hearing. That kind of talk would hurt Lou if she heard it.

"Didn't look like just friendship between you two near the end of that dance," Nellie pointed out. "You looked like you might take her right there on the dirt, and she might let you."

Jimmy felt his ears burn and wondered how many other people saw the same thing.

"I gotta go, Nell, I'm real sorry." He walked around her and started after Lou again.

"Don't know why you're paying for sex if you already got a whore waiting at home," Nellie said nastily after him, and there were sharp gasps and stares from people close by.

Jimmy whirled, furious, but checked himself again when he saw tears in her eyes. He had hurt her. She'd read more into his frequent patronage than he had intended. He moved toward her and she took a nervous step backwards, fear in her expression.

"I wouldn't hit you, Nell. Not for anything. I'm sorry I hurt you, I really am. But you can't talk about her like that, alright? Now, I gotta go find her."

 _You're doing great, Hickok_ , he told himself as he left her behind to continue looking for Lou, who was probably long gone.

* * *

Her face was on fire, her mind racing so fast she couldn't catch hold of another thought except that she shouldn't have come here, that she hadn't wanted to come here, and that it was all Paula and Jimmy's fault she was here, feeling like a fool or worse.

When she plowed straight into a body, she mumbled an apology and tried to keep on without looking up, but a pair of hands wound around her upper arms, stilling her.

Aggravated, she looked up into the face of Silas Warner.

"Dance with me, my dear?" he asked with a mocking smile as a song picked up. "You saved me the trouble of seeking you out to ask."

"I don't want to d-" Lou began, but he had swept her against him and led her amidst the other couples. His hold was firm, brooking no argument, but he wasn't hurting her, and if she had fought him enough, she could have gotten free. Short of causing an enormous scene in the middle of the social, which she wouldn't hesitate to do with good reason, there wasn't much else to do but dance.

He was dressed in a fine suit with a gold brocade vest. His eyes were such a light brown that they were almost the same color as the vest; something about his eyes reminded her of a bird of prey, like an eagle. Those eyes were sharp and probing and Lou felt uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

"What the hell do you want?" she finally growled, stiff in his arms and wishing the song to be done.

"Your land, my darling."

"I am not your darling," Lou snapped. "And you ain't getting my land. You can cut my fences, burn every building I got to the ground, hell, you can even kill me, but you still ain't getting the damned property. I've deeded it to people just as unlikely to sell it as I am. And believe it or not, your bought and paid for law don't have jurisdiction everywhere."

"You're a stubborn bitch, aren't you?" He said mildly, turning her. His graceful, almost courtly, handling of her was at odds with the intense dislike on his features and in his tone.

"It'd serve you well not to forget it," Lou fired back.

"There is another way, you know. To get your land," Silas murmured. "Not to mention some additional benefits."

"Oh?" Lou asked out of curiosity as much as annoyance.

"I could marry you."

She laughed loudly enough that several people nearby threw nervous stares their way, alarmed at the brittle sound of it.

"Assuming that was a possibility, which I don't think I got to say, _it_ _ain't_ , you hate me and everything about me. You'd hitch yourself to me for that little bit of land?"

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Darling. I find you quite beautiful, truth be told, when you aren't covered in rags or horse shit. Tonight, for instance, I find you positively alluring." He leaned his face closer to hers, then inhaled deeply. "And you smell good enough to eat, my dear. Just this moment, I could imagine enjoying every single part of matrimony with you very much."

When his lips brushed against her neck, she pulled back violently and he almost lost his hold on her, but calmly pulled her near again.

"Enough. Let go of me," she demanded, heart in her throat, hands braced against his chest to keep him at a distance. "You're being ridiculous. I'd never marry you, and even if I did, the deed is in my name."

"But you're a mere woman, my dear. The law...even beyond my jurisdiction, says that your husband can do as he pleases with your land. So I get the property, and a little wildcat like you."

"Sounds like you've got it all worked out but the one small detail that I'd never agree to it."

"Well, really your consent can be bought from a witness, and it wouldn't take long at all to make everything nice and legal. After my name is on that deed, it's really up to you whether you live your life as my obedient wife or a prisoner locked in a room...ain't a lot of laws about how a man has to treat his wife neither. I could be nice to you, real nice. You could dabble in your horses. I wouldn't ask you to stop that. Hell, I'll buy you all the horses you want. We could rule the land like a king and queen. I could give that bastard in your belly a name, a worthier name than whatever low-life cowpoke got it on you...so long as you understand that my son would inherit the land. Or I could sell that baby to the Indians...it's all dependent on you, my lovely."

He had touched her stomach through the dress as he spoke about her baby, and that touch was like a burn. She didn't even know how he knew she was with child, the dress hid it well, but his hand on Kid's child as he casually suggested selling the baby into captivity was more than Lou could stand.

"Let go!" She shrieked at last and pulled against him in earnest. He held her easily through a storm of kicking and struggling.

"Really, I think you'll prefer me to my son, who has much worse manners, but if you don't stop this, I'll let him have you until you learn how to behave."

Lou shrieked in fury and frustration. The music suddenly ended on a raw note and couples around them stopped and gaped stupidly at the struggle between the tall man and slight woman in the dust. No one offered to help her, no one would dare move against a Warner in this town, she realized.

The sleeve of the dress ripped and cool air assaulted the back of her arm as she tried to pull out of his bruising grasp, getting one fist free and hitting him as hard as she could. He did little else but grunt in displeasure at her hardest blow and she cried out in pain as the pressure on the wrist he still held increased; she wondered that the bone did not snap. She was dizzy with fear and gasping for air, her vision receding to a small point of light. She kicked at him hard, made contact with his groin or thigh, but didn't have time to judge the effects of her blow.

A blur of dark gray suddenly inserted itself between her and Warner, and Lou, suddenly free, stumbled backwards into the arms of an older man, who helped her right herself before stepping away. With her balance regained, Lou realized that Jimmy was sitting on top of Warner in the dirt, repeatedly driving his fist into the older man's face.

If the townspeople hadn't intervened to save her, Lou at least was grateful that no one moved to help Warner either.

She could see blood on Jimmy's fist each time he brought it up and down, could see that it covered Warner's face.

"Jimmy! Jimmy stop!" She screamed at last and started forward, but a hand grasped her elbow and held her back and she looked at annoyance at Paula, who had materialized beside her.

She shook her head, "You could hurt yourself or the babe. Ned will get him."

Recognizing the brutal truth of that remark, she settled and sighed in relief as Barnett appeared, grabbing Jimmy and starting to pull him off the eldest Warner just as his son and the Marshal arrived.

They pushed Barnett back hard enough to send him into the dirt, and they both set on Jimmy with fists and boots. Jimmy held his own for a moment, fighting with as much grace as Warner had danced. Soon, some of the men Lou recognized from Warner's ranch came forward and at the Marshal's order got hold of Jimmy by the arms.

The Marshal and younger Warner beat him mercilessly as three ranch hands held him immobile, giving him much worse than he'd given Warner.

Lou screamed until her voice was hoarse and cried great gasping sobs and begged them to stop, but Paula held her back hard whenever she started to surge forward.

It felt like hours before both younger Warners finally stood back, catching their breath and motioning the ranch hands to let Jimmy go.

He wove unsteadily on his feet once left on his own, then collapsed in a heap on the dust.

With a furious howl at Paula to let her go, Lou bolted to him, falling on her knees in the dust at his side, and leaning over him, sheltering him from any more blows.

He stirred and moaned a bit, and Lou put a hand on the side of his face that seemed less battered and took a quick assessment. His nose was broken, lips split, one eye completely swollen shut. She imagined he might have a crack ribbed or two, and he was curled around himself in a way that made her think one or both of them had kicked him in the groin.

"What the hell is wrong with you!" she shouted at the Marshal and Jacob Warner. She saw Silas, less bloody than Jimmy but battered all the same, standing behind him. She pointed a trembling finger at Silas and growled loudly enough for the ring of gaping spectators to hear, "He grabbed me and refused to let me go! He was holding me against my will and threatening me and my baby! Jimmy was only defending me! He hasn't done anything wrong!"

"Ma'am, you ought to be careful about talking about my uncle like that. Uncle Si, what happened?

"Ms. McCloud here approached me, asked me to dance. I was trying to be a gentleman but she soon started making inappropriate propositions. She is a woman of low moral character, pregnant with a bastard, living with another man out of wedlock. Hell, talk is before the war she lived alone with a house full of men. I suppose she was hoping to trap me into taking on her and that bastard. When I refused her, she got violent. Then her lover here attacked me."

Paula stepped forward, face red with fury and told the Warners and the crowd, "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard and believe me, I've heard plenty since you low life men have taken over town! This young lady is a widow trying to make her way and the Warners have terrorized her, trying to intimidate her and buy her land out from under her!"

Barnett added, "Someone must have seen something! Tell them!"

Lou had gone very still. Now her eyes swept the circle as everyone in it seemed to find the dust at their toes mighty interesting. The awkward, charged silence was painful.

"Cowards!" Paula snarled at them.

"I've heard enough!" Benjamin Warner snarled. "You can both be my guests tonight in jail. Tomorrow morning at dawn you will each get fifteen lashes for assaulting a citizen of my town and disrupting the peace."

A murmur of surprise went through the crowd.

"Lashes?" Lou questioned, her mind unable to contemplate what that meant.

"A whipping, my dear. A flogging," Silas put in with a satisfied gleam in his eye.

"That's not legal," Lou said with wavering confidence.

"My town. My laws," the Marshal shrugged. Then looked to some of Silas' ranch hands. "Pick him up and put him in the jail," he said, then looked at Lou with a strange smile. "Will you walk or shall I carry you, Ms. McCloud?"

Jimmy jerked as the same hands that had held him immobile started to lift him and Lou screeched at them not to touch him, hurrying to his side again and supporting as much of his weight as she could across her shoulders. He leaned heavily on her.

Raising his eyebrows in surprise that Jimmy could stand at all or that she could shoulder his weight, the Marshal opted not to comment and led the way through the crowd that skittered away like roaches beneath his boots.

Jimmy's breathing was labored and the drool that escaped his lips as he struggled to breathe through his mouth instead of his broken nose was tinged pink with blood. With every step there was a grunt of discomfort as Lou began slowly leading him toward the marshal's office where he had often served as deputy.

Lou staggered under his weight. Suddenly, Barnett appeared at Jimmy's other side and got himself under his other arm, taking the weight mostly off Lou.

There was eerie, guilty silence as they hobbled through the crowd after the Marshal, followed by Jacob Warner, Silas Warner and their ranch hands. Lou could spare little contempt for the townspeople, so bright and consuming was her anger at the Warners and at herself for losing control.

It wasn't as if Warner could have dragged her off the dance floor to the altar. If she had just retained her composure, the dance would have ended and she could have made her escape, rather than put Jimmy in the position of defending her when she caused such a ruckus.

Jimmy said only two words on that hellish walk toward the jail, and he directed them through swollen, cracked lips at Barnett.

"Get Teaspoon."


	15. A Time for Reckonings

_A Time for Reckonings_

Barnett was forced back at the jailhouse door, but Lou managed to support Jimmy's staggering form as the Marshal held open the cell door, slamming it the second they were both inside.

Lou carefully helped Jimmy ease down on the bunk, then crouched before him, taking his face between her hands and tilting his lowered head up a fraction.

"Jimmy? You alright?" she worried. His nose was no longer gushing blood, but quite a lot of it had soaked the front of his brand new white shirt. One of his eyes wasn't visible at all through the swelling, the other looked a little unfocused when it turned to her at last.

She'd never seen someone take such a beating and her fingers were trembling against Jimmy's bruised cheeks.

Jimmy reached a hand with bloodied knuckles up to cover the one she rested against his face. "Did he hurt you?" he asked without answering her question.

"Did he hu-" she broke off, nearly choking on emotion and the absurdity of his question. He was bleeding because he had defended her and she didn't have a scratch on her. "Jimmy...no...they hurt you _because_ of me!"

"I'm fine Lou. Just a little out of sorts." He swayed a little, and she stood to help him lean back against the wall behind the bunk.

When he seemed unlikely to fall over, she turned to find all three Warners watching the scene.

"I need water and a clean cloth to tend his wounds," she demanded in her most authoritative voice.

Benjamin Warner chuckled. "I don't think you're in a position to be telling me what you want from me right now. If I were you in fact, I might start considering what you can do _for_ me. You act nice enough and maybe I will go easier on your back."

Jimmy growled weakly behind her.

"Go to hell," Lou muttered though her skin crawled a little at the thought of being whipped. Early in the war, she had tended soldiers after floggings, had seen the shreds of flesh a strong arm wielding a bullwhip could make of a man's back. Flogging had been outlawed by the Confederacy a little over a year into the war. Even in the brutality of the war, the powers that be, on both sides, had decided flogging was an overly nasty business.

"She ain't done nothing," Jimmy protested in a slurred voice behind her. "You can't flog her because she didn't want to dance with your Goddamned uncle. I'll take her stripes. Then you can still have your show, keep the town running scared."

"No you won't!" Lou told Jimmy, turning around and fixing him with an irritated look.

"I wouldn't deny my uncle the pleasure of seeing the woman who kicked him in the balls stripped to the waist and publicly humiliated," Benjamin Warner asserted.

"She is with child!" Jimmy argued. "You can't…"

"Sure I can," the Marshal disagreed.

Silas spoke up, and Lou was grimly satisfied to see his lip was split wide open. "If you are willing to reconsider my offer, I could intercede on your behalf my dear."

"I'd rather take a hundred lashes," Lou countered.

"The night is young. Maybe you will," Jacob hissed at her, approaching the bars. Despite herself, Lou took a step back.

"Come on, Son. We'll head home. Wouldn't want to miss the show tomorrow." Silas finally said

When they had gone, the Marshal lingered. "You might consider offering me something in exchange for...leniency," he suggested.

"Such as?" Lou asked boldly, raising her chin.

He shrugged, looked at her belly. "I'm sure you got some ideas."

"I'm all out of ideas, you pig," Lou snapped.

The Marshal reached through the bars so quickly that he had hold of her arm before she could move. He yanked her forward, almost into the bars.

"You might want to get some...for your sake and his," the Marshal growled, and then pushed her backwards hard.

Jimmy had lurched to his feet when the Marshal grabbed her, and he intercepted her before she fell.

The Marshal breathed heavily through his nose a minute and stared at them, and Lou held her breath, standing in Jimmy's grasp and fearing he might come after one or both of them.

At last he growled, "Think I'll go have a turn at that saloon girl you are always chasin' Hickok. I understand why after dealing with this one."

Lou glanced back at Jimmy's face to find it troubled, but he bit his tongue as the Marshal left the jail, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the windows.

"I'm sorry," Lou said to Jimmy at last when they were alone.

"I can't see how a single thing that has happened is your fault," Jimmy told her quietly.

"But what if he hurts the girl?"

"Then it is on me and him. Not you, you hear me?" Jimmy insisted, but he was clearly anxious. "Now help me back to the bunk before I fall down."

She did so, helping him lean back against the wall again and then eased down beside him in the same manner.

They sat side by side quietly for a few minutes before Jimmy murmured, "I lost it. My control. When I saw he had his hands on you and that he was hurting your wrist, even though you tried to act like he wasn't, I just lost it. I hadn't been that mad since…" he broke off suddenly, and Lou wondered if he had been about to say he hadn't been that mad since the night he had gone after Kid in the bunkhouse.

It was one of the few other times since their early days together she had seen him completely come apart from his senses. He had been a volatile hot-head once, but Teaspoon had worked hard at teaching him control. He held his temper in check on most occasions where other men might not, but he was only human.

Lou sighed. "I lost control too. There wasn't anything he could do to me right there in the middle of town and people on all sides. I could have waited it out, not made such a scene and walked away when he let me go."

"You're not in the wrong here, Lou. He had his hands on you. It scared me to death not to be able to find you after you left…" Lou felt her cheeks heat a little at the mention of the moment when he had pulled away from her kiss. "Then when I found you and I saw him dancing with you, pulling you close even though I could tell from the look on your face that you wanted out... And then...I saw him...I saw him touch your stomach and I swear to God, when I did, I felt like I had been burned. I can't imagine your thoughts on the matter, but your face said plenty."

"I got us into a big mess, Jimmy," she ventured, voice shaky.

"No, Lou. I got us in the mess, jumping on Warner like I did. You had every right to try to get away from him. No one ever has business putting their hands on you like that and you don't want them to. Not ever." Jimmy growled with certainty and Lou fidgeted then changed the subject.

"Jimmy...have you ever seen a man that's been flogged?"

Jimmy nodded grimly. "Yeah...some of the runaway slaves my father used to help over the border had the scars, some of them still bleeding when they came through the safe house. It's damned unpleasant business. You?"

Lou nodded. "Yeah...during the war. I took care of some of the men who had been flogged at the hospital I worked at." She shuddered, remembering.

"Lou, we got to think of a way to get you out of this. I can't stand the idea of them doing that to you," Jimmy growled.

"Nor I you," Lou shot back, annoyed.

"Lou, listen to me. This ain't about you being a woman, damn it. Well, not entirely. It's about you carrying that baby. Ain't nobody gonna beat you while you're with child. It's just not happening. Something might happen to your baby aga-" he broke off abruptly, but it was too late to take the thought back.

 _Again._

Lou stiffened, felt her face go stony. It was the first time that either of them had acknowledged the tragedy that had happened in their last moments together before the war, the tragedy that had been followed by those lonely and silent years.

Lou looked away from Jimmy, studying the far wall of the cell hard. That same choking, heart-in-her-throat feeling washed over her that always did when her mind conjured that day and the months that followed. Hell, the years that followed. The stale combination of anger and grief and betrayal tasted bitter on her tongue.

"Lou...I'm...I…" Jimmy began but fell silent at her stilted horror.

She didn't think she had the courage to talk about it, hadn't ever really imagined she would speak of it again. But they were here, alone, locked in a cell together, sitting on a narrow bed with a long night ahead of them. And the subject was on the table.

"Why, Jimmy? Why did you do it?" she finally whispered, but couldn't look at him.

"Lou, I swear to God in heaven, I never meant to hurt you. I was so mad at him. It wasn't even about Rosemary. It was about Noah. I couldn't understand how he could do it. It was like spitting on Noah's grave to me. I just...lost it," he echoed his words from a moment ago. "I saw red. I wanted to rip his head off his shoulders, and I think he felt the same way. We just...we were just drowning in rage. I didn't even know you were there...that you were above us. I didn't hear anything but the blood beating in my ears. I don't even know how you got to the ground, Lou, I really don't other that we must have knocked you down. All I know is that sound that came out of you when you got there, and I ain't ever heard nothing like it before, and pray to God I never hear nothing like it again. You were white as a sheet, and there was so much blood. I thought you was being ripped in two, and your body just arched off the floor altogether. I never seen anyone in pain like that…and then Kid took you out of the bunkhouse and I saw you just go limp in his arms when he stepped off the porch and I thought you were dead right then. God, Lou, I'll never forget the sight of that as long as I live. Nor forgive my part in it, Lou."

Lou shuddered. She'd wanted to yell at him to stop talking, but she had frozen at his account of the night. Kid and she had never spoken of it again; it had been too painful at first and after he had joined up, they had tried to make their scarce time together as sweet as they could. She'd never thought about what a horrible sight it must have been for the people she had loved.

It was long minutes before she could locate her voice and courage to speak. But she did, and she said in a low, trembling voice. " _I ain't talking_ about why you fought Kid, or how you two knocked me down, damn it. I knew that was an accident. I knew you wouldn't hurt me on purpose. What I want to know, Jimmy, is why the hell," her voice broke and her eyes filled with tears, and she bowed her head forward as they started falling fast. She hiccoughed on a sob, fought with the hurt that had festered more than she'd known over the years, under the surface of the detachment she'd tried to pull over the wound. Picking at it now was proving more painful than she had imagined.

"Why what, Lou? It's alright," he urged gently, reaching over her lap to take her hand between his.

The touch and gentle tone made her unaccountably angry and she snatched her hand back. The fury gave her the strength to meet his gaze and have out with it. "How could you? All of you! Never a word, a visit? Not even a goodbye! I lay there in that bed and almost died and then I wanted to die because I lost my baby _and my family_ in one night!"

Her tears were back but she blinked them away with determination so she could watch his reaction. As she looked at him, he lost all the color in his face beneath the bruises, and the one eye that wasn't swollen shut registered absolute shock at her words. He opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out and he closed it back again.

She took advantage of his shocked silence to press her point. "I waited. I kept waiting for Rachel, and Teaspoon, and Buck and Cody to come, to tell me it would be all right, that they were sorry about the baby. But mostly I waited for you, damn you, because you meant more to me than any of them. Goddamn you! But you never came. None of you. You just left us there to mourn him," she paused when he flinched at that revelation and said angrily, "yeah, it was a _him_. A boy. A son. Named Jedidiah _Noah_ McCloud. Born dead and buried with just Kid there at the graveside because I was burning with a fever. Hell, they thought they'd bury me a few days later. I even heard the doctor suggest waiting to bury the baby so that we could be buried together when Kid left the room and he thought I wasn't listening. And you just left Kid! Left him to grieve and worry alone! Why? Because he wanted to go fight for Virginia? That was his choice to make, you all knew he would do it, and you still hated us both for it! How _could you_!" She was yelling, and at some point she had gotten up and started pacing the cell, almost without realizing it.

She was possessed by rage born of deepest heartbreak and she couldn't stop the venom from falling from her lips, even though she knew each word she said would fall on him like a blow.

There was utter silence from the bunk and Jimmy. When she turned to look at him, the shock at her accusation had left his face, and tears rolled down his cheeks. He dropped his head into his hands, and she stood over him and watched him, cheeks hot with fury, and at some point she realized tears were scalding down her own face as well.

At last he picked his head up, met her eyes with difficulty. Then he laboriously pulled himself to the edge of the bed and, to her surprise, dropped stiffly to his knees on the hard floor of the cell.

"I ain't got the right to ask, and I ain't go an explanation. But I'm begging Lou, for your pardon. For your forgiveness. I'm sorry down to my soul, for it. For the hurt it caused you and Kid too."

"But why?" she whispered. "Why didn't any of you come?"

He met her eyes, and his eyes slid away evasively. When he spoke, she knew he was withholding something from her. "I guess we all thought you wouldn't want to see us, after what happened." He broke off, looking dissatisfied with his own explanation. "But, Lou, no matter what you think, even though it's fair enough you think we didn't care about you and Kid any more after that...you're wrong. You mean as much to us as you ever did. We...we were never the same without you. You were the heart of us, and when you two left...it wasn't the same. I'm so sorry you thought we didn't care for you, or that we didn't grieve for you and what had happened, but you're wrong about that. We did. I did. Every day before you left Rock Creek, and every day after. And if you'll let me, I'll do whatever it takes, however long it takes, to earn your forgiveness for it."

It was not the answer she wanted. She thought about it, realized there was no answer that could make it all right. No earthly explanation that could take the hurt of what had happened, or their reaction to it, away.

But before her was a man who had always watched her back. He had been protective of her without smothering her, had never for a moment questioned or minded who she really was. He had always been on her side, had always wanted nothing but her happiness. He had admired her and she him, and they had been confidants and advocates for the other unfailingly.

And more recently, during some of the darkest months of her life, he had steadfastly stayed at her side, enduring her bitterness, putting his life on hold so that she might have help in starting hers over.

He'd bowed his head, still sitting there on his knees, literally begging her forgiveness like she was a queen with the power to end his life or set him free with a word.

Her knees were trembling when she walked to stand above him. She put a hand on his shoulder and he looked up, surprised to have her touch, and he met her eyes unblinkingly for a long moment.

She saw his heartbreak and regret and pain, and it was her undoing. The tight coil of anger that had lived in her belly, even during the times when he had made her laugh or smile, simply released tension, and all of her loosened, relaxed, deflated for maybe the first time in five years.

"Do you hate me?" he whispered at last, flinching as if the answer had already been given.

With a small cry, she lowered herself on her knees to sit before him, tears coming again. She put her arms around him tentatively, and lay a head on his shoulder, nose pressed in close to his throat. "Never."

"Can you forgive me, Lou? In time? For hurting you like that?"

She wanted to argue that there was nothing to forgive, but stopped herself. Because there was. They had wronged her, and hurt her, and hurt Kid, terribly. Wordlessly, she nodded. "I forgive you, Jimmy."

She felt all of him relax in her arms, as if long-coiled tension in his gut had been alleviated too, and she knew she had done the right thing for both of them. And even with the shadow of the coming punishment on them, she felt more at peace than she had felt in a long, long time.


	16. A Time to Stand

_A Time to Stand_

She was shivering. Jimmy had given her his jacket at some point during the endless night. He had, at Lou's insistence eased down on the bunk in the cell to ease the strain on his painful ribs with his head pillowed in her lap. There was warmth where he touched her, but she was still cold to the bone.

The light outside the windows was creeping toward gray. Morning was almost upon them. She hadn't slept at all, but was glad to see Jimmy had finally dropped into a restless doze, his brow furrowed and the corners of his mouth turned down.

The bastard marshal had been back one more time the night before, had taunted them for a bit, even taking a bullwhip from a desk drawer and giving it an experimental crack through the air. Despite herself, Lou had leapt a mile high, heart thudding thickly in her throat. Jimmy hadn't twitched.

"Last chance, girlie," the marshal offered. "Wanna come with me a little while and see if you can change my mind?"

Lou had recoiled, and Jimmy had stood and moved in front of her, wordlessly meeting the marshal's gaze. Lou had not been able to see Jimmy's expression but the marshal had paled and Lou had seen him swallow hard.

"Thought you might prefer that to the whip," he finally said nastily, "especially since you are used to it."

Lou anchored her fingers in the back of Jimmy's shirt to hold him in place and neither of them said a word until the marshal left, without stoking the fire in the office stove.

She was worried about the station and her animals, although Jimmy had assured her Barnett would look after them. Still, if the Warners were planning on doing more damage to her property, there would not likely be an easier time to do it. At least by sentencing them publicly, there was pressure on the marshal to produce them both in reasonably the same shape in which they had been taken.

Lou looked down at Jimmy's face, studying him as she had not done in years. Her feelings for him were in a knot, so hopelessly tangled around each other and her grief for Kid that she couldn't imagine ever being able to unwind them. She smiled grimly. Jimmy had understood that more than she herself had.

Earlier, he had broken a long silence by saying, "Lou, about what happened earlier between you and me…"

Her face had gone hot. "Jimmy, I don't want to…" she broke off suddenly, and instead gave him back his own words from what felt a lifetime ago. "We just weren't actin' ourselves."

He met her eyes in surprise, as if shocked she remembered his refusal to talk about a kiss by a campfire long ago.

"I was afraid _you_ weren't acting yourself...that you were caught up in the dance and the music... I didn't want you to regret it...or feel guilty."

There was wisdom there, and a little dented vanity that he had been in a position to recognize it while she had been too wrapped up in him to remember where and who she was.

"I thought...you might not want to kiss me," she admitted.

He had leaned forward on the bunk, grunting in discomfort, dropped his elbows on his knees, pushed his face into his hands and rubbed his forehead gingerly. "Ah...the truth is Lou that maybe I was a little worried about my own guilt. I'm _here_ , Lou. I mean here with you. And tonight I danced with you, and I pulled you close. Hell I know about his child and he never will...and all I could think was that I was stealing a man I thought of as my brother's life, taking the moments that ought to be his...and I was willing to do it in that moment. Hell, I don't know when I ain't wanted to kiss you if we are being honest, and I guess we are...but it is hard for me too...more after the way he and I left things. You and I got things need working out still, but even saying we can, how the hell am I gonna work it out with Kid?"

"So...you did want to kiss me?" she confirmed and Jimmy snorted lightly, apparently hearing the smile in her voice. He laughed softly.

He picked his head up and looked back at her. She smiled tremulously. The smile faded off his lips as he studied her face. "What I don't want to do...ever...is hurt you Lou. You had too much of that. What I _don't_ want to do is lose you again. Yeah, I want to kiss you...that's the least of what I want to do where you are concerned...but I want to do right by you more. I hope maybe someday you'll come around to a place where you might not regret kissing me, but if not, being your friend will do for me. Understand? And while you're working that out, until you're sure of it, I'll be right here trying to make amends with a dead man whose wife I want to kiss."

He startled a laugh out of her at that which she saw pleased him. She murmured, "I missed the way you seem to know me better than I know myself."

* * *

She was jolted out of the memory of the conversation by the sound of footsteps outside and the dread curled back in her belly where butterflies had been beating as she contemplated what Jimmy had said.

She shook Jimmy awake as the door opened. There were quite a lot of voices and restless commotion outside, suggesting a crowd was gathering to witness their punishment. The Marshal and Jacob Warner stepped inside, looking rattled.

"I can't do it." Benjamin Warner told Jacob, shaking his head and glancing at Lou.

"Why the hell not? You afraid of some skirts?"

"If I do something about them, their men are gonna step in and we are gonna have us a full blown riot. We ain't got enough men for that."

"You can't just let the bitch go! Let me put her in her place. Give me ten minutes in the back room, then you can let her go if you're too much of a coward to _do your job_!" Jacob bellowed.

"They are gonna break down this door if we don't send her out fast."

Jimmy stood, and Lou saw his fingers twitch and knew he was looking for his gun out of long habit.

"What's going on?" he demanded. His eyes pinned Jacob, "And if you come in this cell after her, you're gonna have to deal with me, but that ain't nothing next to what she'll do to you."

Benjamin Warner ignored his bristling cousin and stepped to the door, meeting her eyes with distaste and fury, biting off the words, "she is free to go."

"What?" Lou and Jimmy asked at the same time, her with shock, him with hope.

"You heard me. Come on," the marshal growled and opened the cell door.

"Why?" Lou wondered, standing and moving to Jimmy's side but no further.

"Shut up and come on," the marshal snapped.

Lou shook her head and lifted her chin, "I ain't going without him!"

Jimmy turned to her, gripped her upper arms in both his hands and gave her a small shake. " _Go_! Go out there and find Paula."

"I ain't letting you take this on your own," she hissed.

"Lou, dammit, once in your life listen to me. You need to think of the baby. Please...I'll beg if you make me but it will embarrass us both. And I'll be fine."

She felt her resolve weakening both at the acknowledgment she could not put the baby at risk and at the desperate plea in his eyes.

"Jesus Christ! Am I gonna have to come in there and drag you out myself?"

Jimmy met the marshal's eyes. "Your word you won't harm her, or let him?" he nodded toward Jacob Warner, who was glowering at the desk.

"I don't need to make promises to my prisoner. But damn it, if it will hurry this along, sure. That crowd will tear me to pieces if I lay a finger on our blessed Mother Mary here."

Jimmy nodded, looked back down at her. "Go," he urged again. "I'll see you in a little while."

He pushed her gently toward the cell door and she moved forward on wooden legs, everything in her against walking away and leaving him to suffer alone. Tears burned at her eyes, and just as the marshal reached for her arm, she spun and crossed back to Jimmy in two strides, putting her hands on either side of his bruised face and kissing him hard.

His hands came around her waist, and his mouth yielded under hers. Then in the next heartbeat his hand was in her hair, tilting her head back further, demanding more. Her blood boiled, her heart strained against the confines of her chest, and her gut seemed to liquify like warmed honey.

She'd never thought to feel raw desire like that again.

Dimly she became aware that the Marshal was bellowing at them to stop, calling her a number of unflattering things, and coming to get her. She broke away, gasping for air and met Jimmy's dark and stunned stare.

"I guess we'll both have to work out how we feel about that," Lou told him as the marshal dragged her away.

She was slightly lightheaded still as he opened the door and shoved her out on the boardwalk.

Lou blinked in shock when the crowd broke into cheers at the sight of her. Dumbfounded, she saw what looked to be the entire female population of Sweetwater and most of its men too.

Her maelstrom of emotions turned on a dime, and it was gratitude that swept her as she understood what had happened.

The women had stood for her, and their men had followed.

With tears in her eyes and her throat too thick for words, she stepped into Paula's waiting arms.

* * *

 **A/N: My apologies for the delay. I hope you are still with me. The semester is settling down a bit so I hope to go back to about a chapter a week.**


	17. A Time for Punishment

A Time for Punishment

"You alright, honey?" Paula asked, patting Lou's back. "He didn't hurt you?"

"We've got to get Jimmy out!" Lou said breathlessly, ignoring Paula's questions and pulling away, looking around wildly.

"We tried, dear. The problem is that you didn't actually do anything. Whereas Jimmy beat the living hell out of Warner and the whole town saw it."

"He was defending me!"

"It went a little further than that. Not that many people minded seeing it done, mind you. But the marshal has a leg to stand on with Jimmy. Jimmy wanted you protected. He'll be alright. We'll take care of him...after."

Lou continued to cast about in her brain for some way to spare Jimmy the lashes, only to be calmly refuted by Paula, who shook her head sadly and said, "The town risked a lot to stand with you, but they can't put their own families in danger. Jimmy will go easier to his own punishment, knowing you were spared it. Come on. Let's get to the front so he has friendly faces nearby."

Once under the grim gray sky, Lou paused and closed her eyes, breathing heavily. A heavy mist fell, biting the skin of her face and hands, and settling over her hair in clothing in sparkling spheres. She'd never felt more of a coward than she did now, having left Jimmy to suffer alone for something that had been her fault as much as his.

The crowd was thickest around the rough, wide post standing on a platform near the edge of town, with a ring at the top for securing the hands of the condemned. People lined the porches of the nearby shops, sat atop horses and wagons, peered from upper windows, and milled in a restless throng on the increasingly muddy street.

They parted respectfully for her as she made her way forward. For the most part, she felt their triumph and relief she had been spared from what they had seen as injustice.

There were sly voices though, hissing low, and though they were few, every word felt like a blow.

 _That's the whore he was defending_.

 _It's his bastard in her belly._

 _Heard her husband ain't been dead a year._

Lou picked her chin up and carried on.

* * *

They'd put shackles on not only his hands, but also his ankles, destroying any grand illusions he had of either running away or walking to the post with quiet dignity. He shuffled along clumsily, doing well to stay upright.

The crowd was utterly, eerily silent. It made the clanking chains seem much louder.

As they walked down the street, he searched for the bright blue-green of her dress beneath the gray of his coat, anxious to know she was truly unharmed, even while hoping Paula had insisted she go home.

Then again, he supposed, it likely wouldn't matter if Paula _had_ insisted. Lou wasn't exactly receptive to a given order. He knew whatever it would cost her, which he thought was likely a lot, she would stay to witness what came next.

He finally found her standing between Barnett and Paula in the front of the platform. He met her eyes, nodded very slightly to try and reassure her. She was pale as a sheet and looked horrified.

He stepped up on the platform and stood calmly as the marshal, flanked by Jacob Warner, turned to the crowd.

"This man will be flogged, twenty-five stripes, for his assault on the person of Silas Warner."

Silence reigned in the streets.

Jimmy stood, docile, as one of Warner's men unlocked the shackles around his ankles and pulled them away. When the marshal gave the order for Jimmy's shirt to be removed, Jacob Warner stepped forward, but Jimmy gave a sudden lurch backwards.

Jimmy saw Lou's hand instinctively leap for the gun she wasn't wearing, and knew she thought he meant to run for it with his shackles gone.

Jimmy, however, reached for his own bloodied shirt, wrenching it over his head as best he could with the wrist irons. The tearing of the fabric seemed insanely loud in the mist; with the silence of the crowd so absolute, it even reached those across the street.

A gasp rippled through the crowd as Jimmy walked without assistance to the post and raised his own arms to have the irons still on his wrists fastened to the ring.

Jimmy rested his forearms against the post, feeling the ache through his stiff shoulders and sore ribs at having his arms stretched over his head. It would get worse before it got better. He was cold as the mist turned into light rain, and the water dampened his head, shoulders and back.

Marshal Warner leaned in close to Jimmy. The voice in his ear was low. "If you'll make a show of it, I'll go light on every other lash. I'll warn you now, I have a hell of an arm."

Jimmy's eyes swiveled toward Warner and a sardonic smile split his face. "If you think I'll be a puppet in your show, you can go straight to hell, and take your Uncle and Deputy Cousin with you. You won't get a sound out of me."

"Dumb bastard, aren't you? Well, have it your way then. But you're wrong. You'll cry out."

* * *

Lou held her breath as the marshal stood back, rolling the whip out and flexing his arms over his head. Eyeing the bulging muscles of the man's forearms, Lou made a sound of distress.

Barnett put a hand on her shoulder, left it there to steady her. She held her breath and steeled herself as the marshal drew back his arm in a oddly graceful motion that made Noah flash through her mind. Still, even though she'd prepared for it, Lou physically lunged away from the sound of the lash's sudden stop on Jimmy's skin, and only Barnett's steadying hand kept her in place when the first blow fell. She wanted to run, to anywhere but here.

She quickly realized she would have more easily borne the 25 lashes herself than watch even one blow fall on Jimmy's back.

* * *

Jimmy's eyes opened wide and he closed his teeth around the cry of pain as the end of the whip fell low on his back, and he felt the skin split beneath. He surged forward instinctively but had nowhere to go. First lash, first blood he thought, pressing his forehead into the rough wood post and clenching his teeth harder. Twenty-four to go. Sweat broke out on his face and rolled with the drops of rain clinging to his cheeks and nose.

He'd done it, he realized. First blow had come and gone and he hadn't begged them not to do it, had not cried out. In fact, his dread had made him imagine the pain into something more unbearable than this, although _this_ was by no means pleasant. He pushed his forehead harder against the post, settling in for the duration, knowing he could bear it. As strange as it was, he felt relief.

* * *

Lou let out a strangled sound and turned her head away as Warner took his time reeling the lash back in, letting Jimmy think about the first stripe. Then she gritted her teeth and told herself, _This is what you've caused, and if he has to bear it, you will watch it!_

Raising her chin and blinking away the tears in her eyes, she turned her face back toward the post, studying the five-inch long gash in the center of the knotted muscles of Jimmy's back.

Again and again the lash viciously sang in the air, halting suddenly when it bit into Jimmy's flesh. Lines of blood ran from all angles on his broad back, the red seeping from them, mixing with the increasing rainfall, and running pink onto his gray trousers. He was bleeding under the skin too, with large blue welts swelling against his skin, in between the lashes. His rib cage, defined by his stance, heaved heavily, expanding until Lou wondered that the bones didn't crack. The gashes over them widened and split with each labored gasp.

His legs now trembled, and he wove back and forth unsteadily, occasionally losing his footing and hanging by his arms, until the pain of having the lashes stretched brought him struggling to find his feet again.

His hair was drenched as much with sweat as with rain, and his head hung low in between lashes, only to be thrown back at each strike, muscled cords of his neck straining. A thin line of drool hung from his lips now as he bent his head forward, and as the marshal changed to his fresh arm for the last five lashes.

Dr. Barnes was called to the whipping post to examine Jimmy...in the interest of protecting his right against cruel and unusual punishment, Lou thought with fury.

Dr. Barnes, a friend of Teaspoon's, remembered Jimmy well. He took his time examining Jimmy, wondering if he would pass out. If he did so, the rest of the lashes might be spared until tomorrow. Lou could read the lips of the doctor from where she stood.

"If you'll close your eyes and keep them that way," he muttered to Jimmy's drooping head, "I can stop this."

Jimmy raised his head slowly, a difficult task at the moment. "Let them finish. It's almost done."

Stinging tears blurred her sight of him momentarily.

Lou made certain she saw, and thus felt, every lash. She did feel them, more so the last five than any other. Each seemed to instead strike into her own heart, destroying barriers she'd built long ago. He bled now for protecting her. For putting himself in front of a man that would have hurt her. It wasn't the first time he'd stood between her and danger, between her and hurt.

"Twenty-five!" Marshal Warner called out. He was covered in sweat from exertion, looked nearly as miserable as his target. The crack of the last lash echoed through the air and it was over with a final red dash across Jimmy's shoulders.

Jimmy had not uttered a sound the entire interminable duration.

The crowd sighed collectively with relief, then they stood in stunned silence, still staring at Jimmy's torn back. From their subdued reaction, Lou gathered that this lashing had been worse than any other they'd seen in the town. She had never seen anything quite so barbaric as this scene and she was sickened, and vowed silently Benjamin Warner would pay for this.

Jimmy still stood on his own two widely braced legs, weaving badly, his fingertips digging into the wood of the post to help him keep his footing. But he stood. Not a sound but the pattering rain and the _chink_ of the irons around his wrists as he shifted to keep his balance filled the air.

He was growing close to unconsciousness and would welcome it but for fear of getting Lou home safe. He was lucid now, as lucid as he could be with the shreds of his back stretching and tearing with every breath. Once he nearly lost himself in darkness, the pain pulling him down towards it.

Vaguely aware that the irons were being removed from his wrists, he gripped the post a second longer before pushing off, stumbling a few steps away from those that had hurt him.

When Jacob Warner would have gone after him, Marshal Harris held him back, watching, confident Jimmy wouldn't go far. Jimmy stopped, now facing the crowd. He saw a blur of turquoise starting forward quickly, heard his name from her lips.

He closed his eyes and sank to his knees with what seemed unnatural slowness. The blackness started gathering at the edges of his vision, eclipsing his view of Lou.

"Lou," he murmured as hands from all sides clasped his arms gently, helping him lay on his stomach on the platform. Then he saw no more.

* * *

A/N: I apologize for my long silence. Life and work and family got the best of me this semester (odd that my life is forever measured in semesters). Looking forward to some time to write now...and hoping my writer's block has lifted! This chapter is a little shorter, with some Outlander inspiration, but it is finally some words on a page!


	18. A Time for Truth

A Time For Truth

Spotsylvania, Virginia, October 1864

She was in the house when she heard hoof beats on her drive. Heart in her throat, hand straying to her gun in its holster, she walked out onto the cabin's tiny porch.

The canopy of trees above was bright with the deep reds and oranges of autumn and the late afternoon sun seemed to set the edges of them ablaze as it filtered to the path below. She saw two strange men on the seat of a wagon drawn by a mule. Katy was tied behind the wagon.

Kid was nowhere to be seen.

A fist of ice planted itself in her gut and stayed there. The warm and earthy rainbow of Fall receded to a tiny point of light as her vision wavered.

She was going to drop. To faint like one of the women she rolled her eyes at in town. She curled her nails into one of the porch posts to anchor herself there. Every instinct told her to run, to deny what was coming down her drive. But she was not a coward.

She had come to dread the appearance of the somber-faced men in gray in town. _Widowmakers,_ the soldiers and doctors called them under their breath when they appeared on the streets after a battle, like birds of carrion, darkness following in their wake.

She was afraid. Could not remember ever having felt fear like this in a fairly eventful existence. She couldn't do this. Couldn't bear it. Wouldn't bear it. Did not have the strength.

He was all she had. All she wanted. There was no God cruel enough to take him from her.

It took an eternity for the wagon to lumber to the porch. One of the men winced a little as he asked, "Mrs. McCloud?"

She realized suddenly that there were tears on her cheeks. Her knuckles against the post were white as bone as she clung with all her strength.

"He ain't dead!" She hissed, startling them both.

"No...no ma'am!" He stuttered.

Her knees dipped, but she caught herself against the post.

The other one spoke up, "Captain's in a bad way though, ma'am. Real bad."

"It doesn't matter. I will take care of him."

It did matter though. It was clear pretty soon after they brought Kid home that she had already lost him. He never really came back to her after that day. He was never the same again.

Then again, neither was she.

* * *

Jimmy lay in misery for three days in the bunkhouse. The combination of his broken ribs and torn back made every movement an agony. He ran a fever off and on. He was in terrible pain, but never uttered a word of complaint.

Lou tended to him constantly, despite his protests that he was fine, worry heavy on her heart. She was terrified he would take a turn for the worse. So much about his helpless state reminded her of Kid's long demise.

She had felt so alone then.

She felt alone now, even though Paula or Barnett stopped by every afternoon to help her with the animals, to make sure she ate.

With Kid, there had been only her. Everyone else had given up on him.

And _she_ hadn't been enough.

Twice a day, she cleaned Jimmy's cuts. She had worked with a doctor who swore that keeping a wound clean was the difference in life and death. His patients had lived at a higher rate than the other doctors, and recovered more quickly. She had taken note, even with the other surgeons ignored his suggestions.

She knew it was unpleasant business though, having wounds cleaned, knew Jimmy saw no need for her prodding, but he bore it silently, occasionally swiveling a skeptical eye toward her. His back was purple and black from the bruising both the beating and the lashing had left behind. Interrupting the large dark patches were livid gashes of deep red. They cracked and reopened at even slight movement. There was a particularly deep cut over his right shoulder blade that worried Lou, and she took special care to clean it, though it was the deepest. Jimmy hissed through his teeth in relief when she sat back, finished.

After she finished she retrieved an ointment Paula had brought to keep the skin from cracking back open and she eased back down beside him on the bunk. She had ordered him put down on the bunk that had always been his when they brought him back from town in the wagon.

With a grunt of pain, he suddenly lurched onto his side and propped on his elbow. He reached a hand out to cover hers, stilling her.

She looked at his face, startled. It was the most he had moved at once in days.

"What is it, Lou?" He asked gently.

"What is what?" She asked, confused.

"I ain't been good for much these last few days. Bout the only thing I been able to do is watch you. And you're troubled, Lou. Real troubled from the looks of it. Why?"

Lou shook her head, "I'm not-"

"Is it because I am staying in the bunkhouse? I am fine to go back to the tack room if me being here and what folks might say troubles you…"

Lou was taken aback. "That's nonsense. Sides...people in town are already saying what they will. And I never put much stock into what others said about me anyhow. Kid was always worried about that enough for the both of us. You might as well stay where it is warm and comfortable. I don't begrudge you the bed, Jimmy."

"What is it then? Are you worried about the Warners?"

"Yes…" she shrugged. "They'll make more trouble."

"But that isn't really it either is it?"

He knew her, or was at least learning to read her again, and it made her uncomfortable. She evaded his stare. Her eyes cast around the bunkhouse, gaze falling on the basin of water and blood-tinged rag laying over the edge.

She closed her eyes as the memory came on, overtaking her until she could smell wet pine needles and snow and see a pile of bloodied rags on the dusty floorboards of the cabin. Her ears pricked with the memory of Kid's enraged screams as he fought against her hold with the strength he had left. Her lips could have formed her exact words from that time, begging him to be quiet. She felt the old fear of who might hear him and what would happen next if they did.

Jimmy's hand touched her softly on the cheek, drawing her attention back to him. She gasped to be pulled back to reality so abruptly.

She felt tears stinging her eyes, saw Jimmy's distress at the sight of them. "Lou, what is going on in your head right now? What are you remembering?"

Lou shook her head, ghosts making her throat too tight for words. She swallowed, hard, and finally whispered, "I am afraid you ain't gonna get better."

"Lou, honey, I'm fine. I'm gonna get better, all right? This? It ain't nothing. You seen me with worse. Don't...no, please don't do that..."

Lou couldn't see him any longer for the tears in her eyes.

"Ah, damn it," she heard him say without heat and the mattress lurched under her as he rolled up to the edge of the bed. And then, broken ribs and raw back aside, he pulled her full into his lap and simply held her tight through the storm of weeping that had been brewing since they drove him home from the flogging.

* * *

He didn't know what else to do but let her cry. He figured that if she didn't want him holding her she could pull away. For the moment she seemed to draw some ease from the shoulder she rested her head against and his hand stroking her hair. He liked the feel of it, cool and silky, running through his fingers.

She spent herself at length and at last sat quietly in his arms, her head heavy in the hollow where his neck and shoulder met, her legs dangling off his own. His back hurt like twenty hells, his ribs felt no better, but he had no intention of letting her go.

"Lou...don't you think it's time you told me?"

"Told you what?" She murmured, and he could feel the words vibrate through her as she spoke them.

"How did it happen, Lou?"

She flinched. "Kid?" She clarified, but he knew she knew exactly what he was asking. He'd restrained himself from asking as long as he could.

"I think you took care of him before he died. I think it was for a long time," Jimmy murmured with certainty, thinking of her drawn and pensive expression while she had doggedly persisted with his care. There was an anxiousness about her that never lifted, not in the waking hours and not in her restless sleep. His injuries alone did not merit her graveness.

She hesitated. He wondered if he shouldn't push her. Before he could withdraw the question, she murmured, "he was shot. In the head…"

He was surprised at the emotion that closed his throat at hearing the truth. He knew Kid was dead, so he hadn't figured the cause would make much difference to his feelings on the matter. He was wrong and his voice was not completely steady.

"Shot in a battle?"

She nodded. "A skirmish really. He would have died there but for two of his men who saved him and got him to a hospital…" she shuddered and paused, hesitating before saying, "sometimes I wonder if it would have been more merciful to have let him die on that field…"

"Was he in pain?" Jimmy asked but immediately wished he hadn't.

"He would get awful headaches sometimes...awful," she repeated and he felt the shudder that went through her.

"The doctors couldn't help him?"

"They tried. At the field hospital, his men told me they couldn't get the bullet out without killing him outright...they did what they could, I guess. I asked the doctors I knew-I worked at a hospital through the war-I had them look at Kid too...but the damage was done. They told me they couldn't help him...that he was going to die. I refused to believe them. Took him home. Tried to make him get better. I was so selfish. I just couldn't let him go. Convinced myself I would save him." She sighed, her voice bitter when she confessed, "The doctors were right though. He did die. It just took him five months."

"Jesus, Lou," he breathed, arms tightening around her.

She pushed away from his chest, wiped her eyes.

He watched her, hesitated before saying, "I know...I know even if he was hurting, he would have wanted to spend that time with you, Lou. I know he wouldn't have wanted to leave you."

She stood, moving away from him and walked to the window, hugging arms across herself as she stared out at the land. "It...it changed him. He wasn't really himself again."

"Changed him how?" Jimmy wondered.

Lou dropped her head into her hand, massaging her forehead. "Sometimes he'd be his usual self at first. Good days and bad days...And that gave both of us hope. But then it got to where he couldn't do some things...lost some use of his right hand first, and then his leg. He...he would get real exasperated when he couldn't do something...like hold a fork. Then he would get angry."

Jimmy figured he knew Kid better than he knew himself. Knew Kid had always taken care to keep a tight grip on his temper. Jimmy suspected that had something to do with the kind of man Kid's father had been. Jimmy had learned a lot about control from Kid in the early days of the express.

However, he had also seen Kid when Kid's control slipped. And he knew exactly what Kid in a fit of temper looked like. It was not something to take lightly.

"He got angry _with_ _you_?" He asked cautiously.

She was quiet so long that he thought she might not answer. He watched the tense line of her shoulders, knew she warred with her loyalty to Kid and what must be the near maddening need to tell someone what she had endured.

"It wasn't him...wasn't his fault...the doctors told me it could happen when a man gets hurt in his head like Kid had...he couldn't help it...but he'd have these big swings in his mood...he could be volatile…as time went on, he got worse."

"Lou...he didn't...he wasn't...violent toward you was he? He didn't hurt you...hit you, did he?"

"No...nothing like that. He...didn't always know it was me. A few times he got disoriented. Didn't know who or where he was, who I was. He'd lash out but he was so weak by that time. I would have to hold him down so he didn't hurt himself or draw attention to our house when there were people nearby...soldiers from either side would have taken all we had, and deserters would have killed us both as soon as spare us. He didn't know it was me...so he didn't hurt me."

"I think he did…" He heard the emotion in her voice and stood, walking to the window and putting a hand on her shoulder. "Hurt you I mean. Intentional or not...I think it had to break your heart to lose him like that. By inches."

She nodded. "It was the hardest thing I ever done...I think...I think it destroyed me too."

He put his hand on her chin, tilted her head so he could meet her gaze. "You aren't destroyed Lou. Not even close."

"I don't know about that, Jimmy."

"Don't matter if you do or not. I know it. For what it is worth...I am so sorry Lou. So sorry for him, for you. I wish...I wish...I'd..."

His voice broke, as he stopped himself. He wished he had known, had been there for her. Except she'd thought herself abandoned by him and every one of the people who had grieved her loss every single day. But that was done, and no help for it that he could see.

Fresh tears pooled in her eyes as she nodded her acceptance of his sympathy and unspoken "what ifs" and turned back to the window.

He stood there behind her for several moments, desperate to ask her just one more question.

He couldn't. Didn't dare.

 _If Kid was in the shape he was, how could he have been the father of the child she carried?_

Lou had said Kid was the father. Jimmy found himself worried that she was lying not just to him, but to herself.

* * *

A/N: I know it is annoying how long it has been between chapters. I have every intention of finishing this story, but it seems like if I have the time to write I don't have the inspiration, and if I have some inspiration, I haven't had the time. I'll do the best I can, even if it's a shorter chapter. I actually have ideas for moving forward again!


	19. A Time To Run

A Time To Run

Lou let herself out on the porch and welcomed the chill of the twilight that bathed her flushed face.

It had been a day. Jimmy, over a week out from his lashing, was still recovering. He was healed just enough to find the energy to be an ass, and she found the bunkhouse a little too small.

Her cheeks heated again as she thought of his comment on dinner. "Damn Lou. This is the third time we had stew this week."

It had been the last of Lou's metaphorical straws, after a day where he had snapped and snarled about everything. She had flung the ladle at him, darkly satisfied when it clipped his bowl. She managed to splash stew in his face with the hit, as well as overturn the bowl in his lap.

She had left him cussing and slammed the bunkhouse door hard enough to rattle the windows.

She made her way to the barn, pulled Katy out of the stall and set to brushing her vigorously.

 _Gonna brush the hide right off that horse._

His voice was in her ears, clear as it had been a lifetime ago. The grief twisted her belly. She would have traded her soul to go back to the time when her biggest problem had been understanding what she felt and wanted from Kid.

She knew exactly what she wanted now, but she couldn't have it.

She could almost feel the electricity of the moment his hand had covered hers, stilling her as he gently took the brush, then broke contact. It had been his way to be cautious in touching her at first. They'd both been afraid of that leap of pulse they felt when they did touch and what it meant.

He had told her to bring him her problems.

"I cain't." Her voice, in the quiet stable, startled her. _You're dead. You were who I wanted to bring my problems to, but you up and died for nothing, damn it._

A scuff of a boot on dirt intensified the surge of anger she was experiencing toward Jimmy, Kid, and the world. How dare Jimmy intrude on her thoughts of her husband?

"Jimmy, I don't wanna talk to you right now...probably never will again!" She growled and glared over her shoulder.

And froze.

It wasn't Jimmy. It was Jacob Warner and another man she didn't know, standing in her barn.

She worked on mastering her expression as she turned to face them. She didn't have her gun, a careless mistake she attributed to leaving the bunkhouse in a huff. She had nothing but a currycomb and she had a feeling that wasn't going to be enough.

She lifted her chin, made sure her voice was steady. "What the Hell do you want? Thought I was clear about you trespassing on my land."

"If I recall, you got some lashes coming. Just cause my cousin ain't got the balls to deliver 'em don't mean you don't pay for making a fool of my Daddy."

Lou took an unconscious step back when the man beside Jacob unclipped a rolled bullwhip from his belt. She had a flash of a memory of Noah, thought about what his whip could do to the flesh and skin of an apple. Thought of Jimmy's raw back.

Jacob held out a hand. "Not here, John. I think we'll require more privacy. Get her."

Lou bolted, which they had both expected. She had only made it a few steps when a hissing filled the air, followed by a sharp sting on her ankle as her leg was jerked from beneath her. Her wrists took the most impact from the fall to the hard-packed dirt of the aisle, but she hit her side hard enough to be terrified about the safety of her baby.

Then, she was being dragged back the few steps she had advanced by the same ankle. Warner's friend had snagged her leg neatly with his whip.

She struggled to her feet to find herself face to face with the younger Warner.

Before she could raise hands to fight, he had put an arm across her throat and shoved her backwards several paces, pinning her to the barn wall.

"You got no right!" Lou hissed.

"Sell us your land and this all stops. Keep fighting us and this is what you can expect the rest of your life." Jacob hissed, his breath on her face.

Something about the nature of the intrusion in the quiet of the barn, the nearness of his face to hers...so close she could see the chip in his otherwise even front teeth...even the smell of him was suddenly and horribly familiar. Tobacco, whiskey, dust, sweat, male.

Her mind rejected then immersed her in another time. _Kid upstairs, wounded and helpless. Harsh threats bathing her face along with hot, stale breath. If she screamed...if she fought, they'd kill him where he lay._

The memory was so real, so strong, that it never even occurred to her to scream in _this_ moment.

She lashed out quickly and with enough force to catch Warner unaware and his hold on her slipped. She started past him. He recovered, reached out and grabbed her, jerking her back. She kicked at him and her boot caught him hard in the shin. His reaction was swift, a backhanded blow across her mouth hard enough that she staggered, lost her footing, and fell to her knees. She tasted blood.

"All right, 50 lashes for that, but first some fun for me and John. You'll be lucky if I don't cut that bastard out of you when we're done."

As he began hauling her to her feet, she got a glimpse of the handle of the hunting knife strapped beside his boot.

 _Cut that bastard out of you._

It was instinct. Automatic. It was someone far removed from her that reached out, snatched the knife, and brought it in a graceful, terrible arc up and across Jacob Warner's throat.

Their gazes locked, shock meeting shock. And as blood overflowed the neat slice she had made and then rolled down his throat, Jacob Warner sank onto his knees across from her. In the next of his limited heartbeats, he folded to his back in the dirt.

Lou stared, transfixed, blood rushing with a deafening force in her ears.

She remembered she was not alone. The other one. She scrambled to her feet as she heard John's howl of rage.

"You _bitch_!" he shrieked as she pivoted and bolted.

She ran, blind with panic, gripped by confusion and shock, out the back of the barn. In her mind she was leading him away from Kid, and so when she passed into the evening, she was surprised to feel the dry crisp air and see a view unobstructed by thick trees.

The air cleared her head and she realized what she had done. She just killed Jacob Warner. There would be no force on earth that could save her from the marshal and Silas Warner's wrath.

She kept running, one hand supporting her heavy belly and the other still outstretched as if to keep her from hitting the trees she had first expected to be there.

She couldn't hear anything behind her over her own gasping breath and heavy footsteps. She didn't dare slow down or look back, certain that any moment she would feel the sting of the whip as it wound around her waist or legs.

The grass rushed by her ankles and her stride was unfaltering as she ran and ran in the falling darkness.

She ran until she no longer could go on, until her heart threatened to erupt from beneath her rib cage.

At last, she acknowledged her limits were surpassed and she slowed to a halt, her legs weak and trembling enough that she wove side to side upon them, unable to control her limbs any longer.

She glanced around, found that she was near the lake they used as a swimming hole. There was no immediate sign of Warner's friend, but she wasn't confident she had outrun him. She wished she had brought the knife.

All she could think to do was hide. She made her way to the stand of trees on the far side of the pond and she put her back to the trunk of a big one in deep shadow, watching the trail leading up to the lake in the light of the half-moon. Her fingers searched and found a large rock. She curled her fingers as tightly as she could manage around it and rested it in her lap. It wasn't much, but the having of it made her feel marginally better.

Her heartbeat was deafening in her ears and every gasping breath seemed louder than a gunshot to her.

She couldn't catch her breath. There was a hitching cramp in her side. She was getting dizzy, and her heart wouldn't cease it's relentless thundering rhythm.

She thought briefly that she might pass out, and then there was darkness.

Her next thought was that the world beyond her eyelids was aflame. She saw flickering of the bright light at the same moment she felt the heat on her face.

She cast about wildly in her mind for a point of orientation, of where she was...of _when_ she was. She cracked open an eye to see a campfire burning just a short length away, impossibly bright against the night sky.

She remembered Jacob Warner's cut throat and sat up with a gasp that hurt her side.

Her eyes met a steady, dark stare as a figure shifted on the other side of the fire.

A scream bubbled into her throat and her fingers tightened on the rock she still clutched as she scrambled to her feet and prepared for battle.

The fire shifted, or her mind did, and suddenly the rock dropped from her numb fingers with a puff into the dust. The scream she'd built escaped as a half-sob as the features of the man before her emerged.

She moved towards him at the same moment he came to her, whispering her name softly and folding her into a brother's embrace when she fell towards him and came undone.

Buck was home.


	20. A Time To Forget

20\. A Time to Forget

She felt wrong. Not like Lou at all. She was shaking wildly, almost unable to support her own weight on her legs, and she leaned heavily into him. The curve of her belly pressed against him was alien. She seemed smaller than Buck remembered.

She smelled wrong too. Not like Lou. The woman clinging to his neck smelled of sweat and terror and blood.

The desperation in her eyes was as foreign as anything. Not like Lou either.

Nevertheless, he gathered her, sank down by the fire with her in his arms, because as unfamiliar as she seemed, he had not been sure he would ever see her again at all. He was thankful to hold whatever version of her he could.

"I killed him, Buck."

"Shhh," his voice was easy, untroubled and greatly contrasted to her wildly panicked tone, "It will be alright."

"But, I...I...I thought he was...I was somewhere else...that he was someone else...Buck, I am losing my mind," she gasped in a way that let him know the fear she was losing herself was the root of her terror.

"It's alright, Lou," he murmured again, uselessly, though he had no way of knowing it was or would be. He had no idea what was happening at all.

Buck had arrived to find the station in chaos.

He had barely taken in how the loss of the main house changed the landscape of his old home when Jimmy erupted out of the bunkhouse, gun drawn, running toward the barn with an awkward gait that let Buck know he was in some pain. As Jimmy reached the front of the barn, Lou burst out of the back of the structure like she was on fire.

Buck, taken aback, had thought Lou to be fleeing from Jimmy. Without questioning it, he drew his gun to defend her. However, in the next second, another man hurtled out of the barn after her.

Twilight was fast descending, but Buck could make out the glint of light on the gun barrel as the stranger paused and aimed at Lou's retreating back.

He leveled his weapon, but his was not the gunshot that cracked through the air. Wildly, his eyes sought Lou to see if she had been hit, but she kept running without pause, in blind flight. He looked back and saw the stranger had fallen.

He hesitated, unsure of whether to go for Lou or Jimmy, but decided Lou was, at the moment safe. He had no idea what or who was in the barn to give Jimmy trouble. Buck was guessing the stranger in the dirt was dead by Jimmy's hand.

He faced Jimmy's gun when he rode into the barn and quickly announced himself.

It took a tense moment and Buck yelling, "It's me, Jimmy!" again before recognition replaced the bloodlust in Jimmy's eyes. Jimmy nodded in terse greeting and then turned his attention back to the body sprawled in the aisle of the stable.

There was as much blood as Buck had ever seen pooled in shiny black puddles around the young man. His throat was laid open. Katy was standing nervously tied in the aisle, pulling at her restraints.

Jimmy was shirtless, and as Buck came up on him, he saw the destruction done to the flesh of his friend's back. Barnett's telegram had said Jimmy had been arrested and was going to be flogged. Buck had known he would be too late to stop it, but he still felt he had failed Jimmy somehow.

"What happened?" Buck demanded, trying to keep his voice calm.

Jimmy shook his head, glanced out the open back of the barn where the darkening sky hid the body of the man he had just killed. His chest heaved in exertion as he fought for control of the panic clearly gripping him. Buck could see that the fingers curled around his gun were shaking. "We gotta get them out of here."

"Jimmy, who the hell are they? What happened?"

Jimmy ignored the questions. "You go track Lou down...she is heading for the lake. Keep her away from here. I'll take care of this. Tell her I'll take care of it and not to worry."

"You can't take care of this alone...not with your back ripped to shreds. Damn it, Jimmy...your back. Looks like they nearly killed you. Did these men do that to you?"

Jimmy waved the questions away impatiently. "Buck, listen. You gotta find Lou. There ain't no blood on your hands and I intend to keep it that way. Just keep her where you find her. I will come for you later. Don't bring her back here until you hear from me, understand?"

Buck hesitated, met Jimmy's eyes, understanding that the dead men were somehow linked to the ashes in the yard and the marks on Jimmy's back, the inquiries Teaspoon was making...and possibly some fresh harm to Lou.

"Jimmy...the bodies can't be found on this land."

"I don't intend for them to be found at all," Jimmy said grimly. He repeated, "Buck, go get Lou. She'll need you."

It had gotten too dark to track her, but Buck had an idea of where she might be headed and there was enough moonlight when he got to the swimming hole that he could see her. She had fallen asleep or fallen unconscious against a tree, her fingers curled tight around a rock.

He checked her breathing, and when it seemed untroubled, he let her rest and went about making a camp of sorts. He wasn't sure if she would be able to go back to the station tonight or possibly at all if Jimmy did not do a good job of covering up what had happened.

Finally, he settled across the fire from her and studied her.

It was clear that the intervening years had been unkind ones. It was hard to imagine her in the world without Kid...they had been two sides of the same coin for as long as he had known them. They had both gravitated toward each other from the first days, as if an irresistible force pulled them together. Kid and Lou. Lou and Kid. Their names were linked together in his mind, wanted to roll of his tongue together.

He knew something about what it did to a person forced to move to without a counterpointed soul. He still felt Ike's loss keenly, still felt an emptiness in his life that he realized would never be filled. He imagined her loss was deeper, harder.

So when she woke up, eyes wild and unfamiliar, Buck supposed it was only fair he didn't really recognize her. She was no longer the Lou he had known because half of the Lou he had known had been buried in Virginia.

It was hours before Jimmy arrived at the camp, making a point to announce himself long before he could startle either one of them with his presence.

Buck and Lou had been sitting in tense silence for some time. It hardly seemed an appropriate time to catch up. Buck had, at least, gone down to the lake to fetch Lou some water to wash her hands free of the blood that had stained them, and he had given Lou one of his spare shirts, and without asking had thrust her blood spattered one into the flames when she had told him she was done changing.

Jimmy could barely walk upright, and deep lines of pain and exhaustion bracketed his eyes and mouth. He had taken the time to clean up, his hair still damp from washing and a fresh shirt covering his broken skin now.

Buck met Jimmy's eyes, an unspoken question there. Jimmy nodded almost imperceptibly and Buck sighed.

Lou lifted her face to look up at Jimmy as he stopped by the edge of the fire to stare quietly down at her.

"Lou, you all right?"

She shrugged, still distant in her eyes.

Jimmy crouched down in front of her with a grunt of discomfort, resting his arms on his knees. "Did they hurt you Lou? Or the baby?"

Buck was a little taken back at the uncharacteristically tender note to Jimmy's voice. Surprised, he looked away from Lou and toward Jimmy and for maybe the first time, saw the truth in Jimmy's feelings for Lou etched there, bald and honest in the campfire light.

"What in God's name happened, Lou?"

It was a question she hadn't made a lot of progress on answering, and one that Buck was desperate to know the answer to, but he suddenly felt the interloper on the conversation, especially when he saw the darkness come down over Lou's features. Fear, rage, grief, shame all fought for control of her expression.

Buck interrupted before she could speak her mind. "I'm going to check the station...make sure your moves can't be tracked, Hickok."

Jimmy spared him a glance, nodded at the soundness of that plan.

As Buck turned to go, he heard Lou say dispassionately, "Jimmy...for a minute tonight, I thought I was back in Virginia. I thought I was back in the day they brought Kid home...I could smell the pine trees Jimmy. I think I killed that boy thinking he was someone else altogether."

"I think this has been happening a lot lately, Lou. You told me some of it, but don't you think it's time you told me the rest, Lou? I think your memories are gonna drown you if you don't talk to someone. If not me, maybe Paula, or Emma...or Rachel."

Buck saw her flinch at the mention of Rachel, and knew that whatever hurt Lou had endured in Virginia, they had all hurt her plenty.

"I'm afraid if I don't tell someone...I might lose my mind, Jimmy...afraid I already am…" she repeated, and unable to listen any more, Buck swung on to his horse and rode back toward the station and tried to remember the old Lou.

He couldn't.

A/N: I am still alive and kicking, just recovering from a busy semester.

On a personal note, Yvonne Suhor's death hit me pretty hard. It seems strange to write Lou again...much of this was written before she passed away, but I was trying to decide how to move forward. I am trying to find my way back to Lou now. I would like to write something profound about how much this wonderful character brought to life by Yvonne means to me, but it still feels too fresh. Maybe I will get to it in a few chapters.

Hoping you all have wonderful holidays with the ones you love.


	21. A Time To Remember

Chapter 21: A Time To Remember

After Buck left them, Lou started at a movement in the shadows. A mournful whine sounded, and Zeus, head hung low, approached her with hesitation. Jimmy thought the dog looked as guilty as he felt, though he hadn't reckoned dogs could feel guilty until this moment.

"Buck said you shot the other one...the one chasing me," Lou finally murmured, placing her hand on the dog's head.

Jimmy's answer was roundabout as he studied Lou, who couldn't seem to meet his eyes. "Dog figures he failed you. Hell, Lou, we both did. But I gotta tell you, if it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't have got out in time to finish the second man off before he shot you in the back. The dog was laying by the door after you left us, whining now and again. Then, all of a sudden every hair on his neck stood on end and he let out a growl the like of which I never heard...I ran out...left him behind...he about went through the door trying to get to you from the look of it. Next time, we'd both appreciate it if you didn't leave him behind…he has been beside himself till right now."

Lou absently rubbed the big dog's drooping head, and considering himself absolved, Zeus settled down at her side, his considerable weight pressing into her leg. Jimmy hoped his presence was a comfort, wished he could settle in close on her other side, but he sensed a wall up between them and kept his distance while she gathered her thoughts.

"I'm sorry you had to kill a man." Lou managed at last, still not looking him square in the eyes.

"Anyone who'd shoot a woman in the back ain't a man, and mark my words, he was about to do it."

Jimmy was glad he was sitting because his legs wanted to shake thinking of that shot. He'd had to take it quickly...too quickly to really aim, and between his shock at finding the boy with his throat slit, his blind panic, and the low light, he considered it something of a blessing he had managed it at all.

Then again, he was pretty sure blessings didn't end in dead bodies. He'd grapple with his conscience later though. Now, he needed Lou to talk to him, even if she couldn't look at him.

"Lou...you said you thought you were in Virginia. What do you mean about that? What happened that haunts you that way?"

"Kid...came home in a wagon. Brought by two of his men...I guess they said their names to me at some point or another, but I couldn't tell you what they were. Couldn't even tell you much about what they looked like, I was in such a state of shock about Kid being in the shape he was…"

"Kid was out cold in the wagon...and stayed like that for days after. That ride nearly shook the little life in him right out. I...I couldn't have managed to lift him, even though he probably didn't weigh much more than me by then. He was terrible thin. So thin." Her voice wavered and she closed her eyes tight and Jimmy would've given his right hand to take away the picture burned on her memory that made her flinch in the recalling of it now.

"His men...God, I don't know why I can't remember their names...surely, they told me, didn't they?" She paused, eyes searching his in a sudden, intense inquiry.

Throat tight, heart pounding high in it with dread, Jimmy managed to answer, "I don't know, Lou. Maybe they didn't say."

Lou stared back into the flames, brow furrowed in concentration, then she shook herself a little, continued. "They offered to carry Kid inside for me. I...it never occurred to me not to let them in. They were Kid's men. They had brought him to me when they might have just dumped him in the woods and let him die. I guess I owe them a lot for that…" her voice was hesitant, conflicted.

"You didn't owe them nothing," Jimmy said, and though he meant to speak gently, it came out as a growl. But she didn't seem to hear him.

"They waited with him while I put clean sheets on the bed upstairs. Then, I held the door while they got Kid out of the wagon and they carried him up and placed him so careful on the bed. They were so easy with him. He stirred a little bit...hurt by the movement and they showed me how to get the laudanum in him for the pain. He slept easy after that, and I was full of gratitude and hope, sure I could get him well now that he was home with me."

"I asked them to stay on for dinner. They were so thin too, and I hadn't had any company for a week, since last I had been to the hospital. The days were so long when I was at the house. I got to craving the sound of another voice sometimes…the men, they were laughing and telling me stories while I got a supper together and for a minute, listening to them try to outdo each other reminded me of home, the bunkhouse..."

Those words hit Jimmy right in the gut, hard enough to make him ache. _Stop_ _there_ , he wanted to tell her.

"We shared a meal and a little brandy I had left over from the last time Kid was home...it was late by then so I offered them a place in the barn to sleep...we didn't have much room in the house and I just didn't think it fitting for them to stay inside with Kid being out like he was...and they accepted. I showed them out and then went in to sit with Kid. He didn't wake, but I just talked to him, told him how happy I was to have him home. I...I looked at the wound too. And that's when I knew nothing would ever be the same. It was worse than I imagined, though I still thought I could heal him enough to stay with me."

"After dark, there was a knock on the back door. I figured one of the men might need something, so I went down quick. I was in my nightdress. I shoulda thought to put back on the dress...but hell, I slept in a room full of boys with long johns on for a year...it never occurred to me to change until...after."

"After," Jimmy echoed tonelessly, having figured out early on where this particular story was heading.

"One of them was at the door. Said his friend was snoring too loud for him to sleep and could he trouble me for a drink."

Lou tugged a hand through her hair, nostrils flaring. "I knew in my gut I should have turned him out, but I didn't listen to myself. When he walked by me, I smelled whiskey...and I knew I had made a mistake, but I was still sure of myself, sure that Kid's men were as good as he was. But I was wrong."

"He caught me up in the drawing room, said how lonely he was. He just wanted to dance and hold me a minute. Smell my hair. Said how much he missed his sweetheart. Her name was Penny. Funny how I remember her name."

It wasn't funny at all, and Jimmy felt like he might turn to stone...wished he could.

"He was crying, and I was still thinking I could reason with him. When he started trying to kiss me, I fought back. Hit him pretty hard. That seemed to bring him to his senses, make him realize I wasn't Penny. But he didn't much care. He pushed me down on the sofa in the drawing room, got on top of me. I screamed and started to fight, hoping his friend might help me. He pulled a knife, held it to my throat. Told me if I made another sound he'd kill Kid where he slept right above our heads, and I believed him...I didn't make another sound. Not a single peep. He cried the whole time, apologizing and weeping, while he...well, I suppose you know."

He did know. Jimmy could see the bright spots of color in each of her cheeks as they burned in shame. He searched for any words he could give her to relieve her of her embarrassment, but he was struck mute with horror, and misplaced rage that had no outlet in this clearing thousands of miles and too many years removed from the moments she spoke of now in a dispassionate voice.

"He didn't ever hit me. Didn't hurt me overmuch, even. Didn't even leave a mark on me," Lou murmured. "And that made me feel like a coward when it was done, for not fighting...for not making it harder on him."

That statement found Jimmy's voice for him. "He had a goddamned knife to your throat and threatened to kill Kid, who couldn't have defended himself, or you. What choice did you have, Lou?"

She shrugged. "Doesn't matter now. It is done."

He didn't want to know, but had to. "Was that the end of it?"

"He got dressed. Still crying, still apologizing. He pulled my nightdress down to cover me and kissed me on the forehead before he let himself out and I just lay there and watched him go...it felt like it had all happened to someone else."

"He didn't come back? Or the other one?"

"I don't know if he would have or not. Soon as I could stand, I got my gun and a lantern and went out to the barn and ran them both off at gunpoint. I think when the other one got a look at me, he knew what had happened, so he didn't put up a fuss, and the one who had come to the house didn't say a word. They packed up, rode out, and I ain't never seen them since."

That sounded more like Lou, he thought, took a moment to wish she'd pulled the trigger on one, if not both, the men.

"It wasn't the end though, was it. You still think of it," Jimmy said, understanding.

"Not overmuch. Just sometimes. When a stranger rides up. Or I smell whiskey. Or like tonight...I guess that fear when Jacob had me trapped, I got it in my head that I was back there, with Kid helpless above my head and the baby helpless in my belly. Got mixed up."

"Lou... I asked you before but I gotta ask again...this baby...is it Kid's or is it his?"

Lou blinked, "what are you talking about Jimmy? I told you this was Kid's baby already!"

Jimmy struggled to keep patience in his tone but urgency made it more clipped. "Lou, from what you said, Kid wasn't in any shape to be fathering a child after he was hurt...and I guess I need to know if this soldier is gonna come looking for you or his baby."

Lou's eyes grew stormy, "It ain't _his_ baby and he ain't got no claim to me neither!"

"Of course not, Lou, but sweetheart can you tell me how in the world Kid is this child's father?"

"He came back to me, Jimmy. For just a while before he left me. It was a miracle."

Jimmy met her eyes, feeling sick. He hoped the doubt and disbelief clutching him didn't show in the small smile he attempted. He worried that her confusion about that time, so steeped in trauma, had rooted a more palatable reality in her mind than the fact she was pregnant with her rapist's child. Worried that she couldn't face the more likely truth. Worried what the denial might do to her when it broke.

"Maybe you can tell me about that later. Right now, I think you should rest." But before he helped her settle down, he leaned over, took her hand and held it tightly for a long moment.

And prayed with all the love he had for her for that miracle to be true.

TBC.

A/N: Well, I agonized over it long enough and finally just wrote the thing. And I completely forgot about Zeus' existence in the last chapter which is what happens when you go so long between chapters and post a chapter at a time, but maybe in polishing down the road I will fix that.


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